Finally the weather is good, calm winds (but foggy), and time to put our new Yagi on top of the tower.

The tower is exactly 12m tall, we are careful and use approved safety equipment. We use climbing harnesses for tower work, with safety lanyards for fall protection.

I got real good help from many of my colleagues, but putting the antenna up was not as easy as we hoped for, the guy wires was in the way... But, after some thinking and adjustments, the antenna was in place and the adjustment could start - we had to point it straight to the south for the antenna rotor to show the correct bearing.

You can see the pulley on one of the pictures, it helped lifting and maneuvering the antenna a lot!

Finally, the Fritzel FB-53 with extra guy wire suspension and a brand new Hy-Gain 4000W balun was in place. That evening I had quite a big pile-up :)

73s de JX9NOA

It is my day off, so I did some work on my antenna. The boom broke off in february, so Fritzel sent me new parts. They also modified the antenna somewhat, actually they just sent me parts for putting wire suspension on the ends of the boom.

I made a very small modification myself, i put a U-bolt on the metal plate in the centre of gravity. This way I believe it will be easier pulling the antenna to the top, fastening a rope in this bolt.

We made another small modification that will ease the mounting considerably - we welded the ??? to the metal plate. (.. I don't know the english word), the metal part the U-bolt goes through, the 'thingy' between the metal plate and the tube on picture number 4. Originally these are loose, so sitting on top of the mast, holding the antenna and maneuvering the small parts on place, while fitting the U-bolts is difficult, welding these parts to the plate makes mounting easier. I think. :)

Bad news for all you radio amateurs out there :(

Tonight we had some wind, and my 3 months old 5 element beam broke right off! As we have a meteorological station here I can give you exact wind velocity, maximum average wind over 10 minutes was only 49knots (25.2m/s, 56.4mph) - this is not much!

The antenna has broken off directly at the reinforcement weld at the boom. When you look carefully at the closeup, you can see metal fatigue on the broken off part on top, and when the boom started to break, the metal peeled off like when you peel an orange.

Needless to say, first thing in the morning I will call the norwegian importer, this must clearly be an example of manufacturing error. The worst thing is I cannot get spare parts/new antenna up here before April 5. Sorry friends, I am off air. 

73s de JX9NOA