New Crank Up Tower/Antenna Setup

[indysteve]

Thanks a bunch to Greg B. for all his hard work in
finishing up the installation of his former crank up
tower at my house. Things are hooked up and seem to
be working quite well. Now we need some tropo to
really check it out.

The tower's height when all the way down is 21 feet.
The mast out of the top of the tower is 9 feet, so
when it's down the Triax Unix 100 stacked antennas on
the top are at 30 feet. When fully extended it will
go to approximately 42-43 feet. The Funke 1922 VHF hi
antenna is about four feet below the Triax antennas.
I bought a new CM 7777 for the UHF and a new Winegard
HDP-269 (12 dB gain) for the VHF. I'm using a Yaesu
G-800DXA rotor (from Greg).

The tower setup includes two winches, one for raising
and lowering the tower, and another one for laying the
tower over. Hook up a variable speed electric drill,
and up or down she goes!

I've attached some pics that were taken Sunday,
including a pic of Greg making some final adjustments
to the extra support bars he attached between the top
of the wood posts (about 9.5 ft.) and the tower legs. The top
antennas are at 40 feet AGL in these pics.

So far, reception of local UHF analog LPs has improved
quite a bit. From what I've been able to tell so far,
the Funke 1922 has more gain and is a little more
directional than the Antennacraft high band I was
using. Although I'm 3-5 miles from most of the Indy
TV towers, I'm getting very few overload issues.

Steve

[NN2E]

Good deal on the new tower, Steve!
I have GOT to get my antennas up higher, too. VHF is only at 16 ft and UHF is around 20 ft. The VHF looks right through my metal roof from northwest through northeast. The UHF is just barely high enough to see over the roof but it still looks through several trees in various directions. Hope to reslove this problem ASAP. Plan on moving them to a 40 ft free-standing tower and using 3/4 hardline as feedline.
Enjoy your new tower!
73, Ed NN2E
Owner / Operator - Murphy's Law Test Site & Thunderstorm Proving Grounds
BTW... saw a few of your locals this morning...DTVs 16, 25, 46 as well as DTV 48 from Bloomington.