LCARA, you've outdone yourselves with this impressive antenna installation on the 48' tower! This video is truly commendable. Your dedication to HAM radio and commitment to achieving excellent communication range is inspiring. Thanks for sharing this informative and visually captivating Part 5 of the series. Looking forward to future updates and more exciting HAM radio content from LCARA! Keep up the fantastic work! 📻🗼"
As a newbie in the radio field I am impressed as all get out with this whole series. I have started with GMRS and have set up a base station with a Midland MTX 500 and have been able to communicate easily with folks from 12 miles away simplex to 55 miles away through a repeater. I can see HAM in my future and have been researching different approaches to towers and am starting to learn about different antennas. This whole topic and hobby is fascinating. I am recently retired and so have more time to pursue the radio communications hobby. Thank you for putting together this series, it has been very helpful to see all the detail that needs to be looked at and worked out to get a station up and running. Thank you again and hopefully we will meet on the airwaves. 73s
The line on that map almost goes right over where my great-grandfather's farm was in Clinton County just over the Tennessee line. That's a great signal given the distance and the terrain. You're even making it from the Central to the Eastern time zone. NK5J.
It was enjoyable to see a good old antenna raising weekend. I remember the good old days when we'd have a barbecue afterwards and the women folk would get together and chat and Men folk would get together and talk about radios and upset them. I only have one concern. That is that your tower climber had all kinds of excuses for cheating on proper tower climbing protocol. You always wear a hard hat. You always clamp above and climb to it clamp above and pull the clamp below it and go back and forth until you hit the altitude that you're going to be working at. That way you are always tied off at least one place and usually in two. If y'all slip you will only fall 4 ft. I'm sure many of us have seen the video of the two rather arrogant climbers that climbed to the top of a 2500 ft broadcast tower without clamping off at any point. People loved it loved it and didn't hear that both men lost their jobs and their licenses to climb. That's just one thing y'all don't do. Now I got an idea for y'all to sit on. You did well getting up the GP6 and a yagi to get into your nuts. But I wonder if there might have been a different approach. That would have been a cross-band repeater. Y'all would have put up a 440 repeater and then a Arcom RC 210 repeater controller that had a 2-meter transceiver connected to a yagi zeroed in on the Tennessee repeater. Why? Because then you would have used your 440 repeater for local Communications that would get you into the LCARA repeater for a good 20 mi around your home qth. You may have been able to get into the LCARA repeater at points closer, but you would also be giving your neighbor hams the ability to go into your 440 repeater and hit the LCARA repeater. Just a thought for y'all. That's what I would have done and what I have done. My repeater links with another repeater and all I need is a Simplex transceiver radio connected through my repeater controller and a yagi pointed at his repeater. Our arrangement quadrupled the coverage of his repeater. People could get into his repeater through mine from three different sides that he couldn't see and people could get into my repeater from further out where I couldn't see. All in all it worked out well for us. You would essentially be doing the same thing except y'all would just be setting it up for LCARA. You're halfway there. All you need is a low-power 20 W repeater and either a duplexer for transmit/receive or a separate receive antenna and a repeater controller and you're ready to do it. In such a manner you could be in your backyard with an HT and hit LCARA anytime you wanted. Another thing your local repeater could be used for is if y'all wanted to talk local you could touch tone the command to turn off your Simplex VHF radio to LCARA and y'all are on your own UHF repeater. When you're done y'all turn the link back on. You can do this quite easily by grabbing a hold of a couple of Motorola CDM mobile radios and building a low-cost repeater. Where I live my repeater covers 125 me give or take 25 mi. No kidding. But that's using 100w repeaters. You can get to 50 Watts on your inexpensive for repeater by putting fans on the transmitter or by switching to a more powerful transmit radio with a hefty heat sink.
Your vertical beam is installed incorrectly. Installing a vertical beam on a vertical mast where the mast passes past the boom of the antenna will result is a distorted pattern and degraded gain. The mast acts like an extra element in the wrong place. Vertically polarized beams should be installed on a horizontal cross boom.
A comet gp-9 will give you 2.1 more db gain and a Yaesu 2980 would give you 30 more watts. Those 2 things would be a huge improvement. Still a very nice setup
Is that tower designed to climb? Is that a BX Tower? I thought they were made to tilt to add the antenna and stand the tower up afterwards. Those tower rugs are to thin to stand on. Also with two guys on that particular tower without any guide wires looked to be quite dangerous. Please do a search on this tower for climbing purposes. Seriously. It may save your life. I am not being a wise guy or a know it all. I have climbed many different towers and I have made mistakes in which I had to learn the hard way, just saying. Be safe and I wish you all the best.
That's awesome but at what point do you reach diminishing returns? I'm in Florida at 175' ABSL I have a push-up mast that is 33' but starts 3' off of the ground so 36' total. I have a Diamond X300A on it and it performs very well. Full quieting on simplex to machines of similar setup up to 25 miles so far. I very easily make repeaters to 51 miles and beyond depending on their setup. You say your vertical antenna is a Comet GP6? Do y'all think there are gains to be made going higher with that antenna and power? The receive is only going to be so good. Your thoughts please.
Well, I just took down the old tower and working on getting the new one wired and ready to go. I got a few items going on it and going to point down your way as soon as I can. A couple of weeks from now at least. Let Josh know I will be pointing at his house for a chance for some 2m simplex.... lol... should be interesting. Great video as always. Keep it up guys. de W9KHP
5:44 it is true that you would fall 8ft. But at least in Germany you have belt energy absorber for this case. If you hit a speed which is unsafe, the energy absorber will rip and thus break you gently. Your chosen option is to fall down and hit the ground with maximum speed. I think my option sounds better than yours.
I run a Comet GP-9 & Comet Seams To Make A Really Good Antenna IMHO..I Can Hear Lcara from Here a little bit from time to time but not Enough to get in it ! But The Comet GP-9 is Like 17ft Long to..lol. But its only about 25ft off the ground !..for Now..! But A Beam Should Always Work a Lot Better IMHO !
I also would be using the gp9 sense where he's at is somewhat flat. As long as the antenna can see over the top of the little bitty bump of a mountain, he's going to get straight into the LCARA repeater without having to use a yagi. The gp6 has lower gain and a rounder lobe. But what he's got is working, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I did suggest that he go to a cross-band repeater system, and if that were the case, I would put up a 9dB UHF antenna further local area repeater. That would concentrate the signal at the horizon. I don't want to get to running my mouth here, but I tried an experiment once that blew people away. I live on top of a mountain at 6,500 ft. Working on a discone I could talk darn near anywhere. But then I switched to a 3dB gain antenna, and people closer to me at the bottom of the mountain said they couldn't hear me as well, and I explained to them about how an antenna achieves gain. Then I switched to a 6dB gain antenna can the people at the bottom said they could barely hear me. And then I switched to the 90 dB gain antenna, and they couldn't hear me, but a ham 400 Mi away also on top of a mountain could hear me just fine. The moral of the story is to pick the antenna for your situation. If y'all's on flat ground go to the 9db and you'll increase your range quite a bit. Especially on VHF because your signal is going to hug the curvature of the earth and go up and over it about 20%.
Electrical tape is the worst way to secure cable to anything, much less wrap connectors. Always will take on some water regardless of how tight or how much is used. In the Satellite TV business for over 30 years and seen more cable/connectors problems due to using it in this manner. The heat shrink may save the connection from moisture issues. Typical of homeowner/DIYers.
Good video mate, but Ken the tower climber guy can’t be an expert scaffolder/climber. If he was he wouldn’t be wearing an Hawaiian shirt as his work clothes.
![Twenty One Pilots - “The Line” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E2Rj2gQAyPA/mqdefault.jpg)
LCARA, you've outdone yourselves with this impressive antenna installation on the 48' tower! This video is truly commendable. Your dedication to HAM radio and commitment to achieving excellent communication range is inspiring. Thanks for sharing this informative and visually captivating Part 5 of the series. Looking forward to future updates and more exciting HAM radio content from LCARA! Keep up the fantastic work! 📻🗼"
As a newbie in the radio field I am impressed as all get out with this whole series. I have started with GMRS and have set up a base station with a Midland MTX 500 and have been able to communicate easily with folks from 12 miles away simplex to 55 miles away through a repeater. I can see HAM in my future and have been researching different approaches to towers and am starting to learn about different antennas. This whole topic and hobby is fascinating. I am recently retired and so have more time to pursue the radio communications hobby. Thank you for putting together this series, it has been very helpful to see all the detail that needs to be looked at and worked out to get a station up and running. Thank you again and hopefully we will meet on the airwaves. 73s
Nice setup mate and lovely property you have!!!
Found your channel on my RUclips feed and loving the content. 73's from New Zealand ZL2XL
Hehe 😂 - Those radials are sneaky aren't they?! That's very easy to do.
Good video, & I look forward to seeing everyone soon. 73
I’ve been following this antenna installation. It always great when a plan comes together LOL
The line on that map almost goes right over where my great-grandfather's farm was in Clinton County just over the Tennessee line. That's a great signal given the distance and the terrain. You're even making it from the Central to the Eastern time zone. NK5J.
It was enjoyable to see a good old antenna raising weekend. I remember the good old days when we'd have a barbecue afterwards and the women folk would get together and chat and Men folk would get together and talk about radios and upset them.
I only have one concern. That is that your tower climber had all kinds of excuses for cheating on proper tower climbing protocol. You always wear a hard hat. You always clamp above and climb to it clamp above and pull the clamp below it and go back and forth until you hit the altitude that you're going to be working at. That way you are always tied off at least one place and usually in two. If y'all slip you will only fall 4 ft.
I'm sure many of us have seen the video of the two rather arrogant climbers that climbed to the top of a 2500 ft broadcast tower without clamping off at any point. People loved it loved it and didn't hear that both men lost their jobs and their licenses to climb. That's just one thing y'all don't do.
Now I got an idea for y'all to sit on. You did well getting up the GP6 and a yagi to get into your nuts. But I wonder if there might have been a different approach. That would have been a cross-band repeater. Y'all would have put up a 440 repeater and then a Arcom RC 210 repeater controller that had a 2-meter transceiver connected to a yagi zeroed in on the Tennessee repeater. Why? Because then you would have used your 440 repeater for local Communications that would get you into the LCARA repeater for a good 20 mi around your home qth. You may have been able to get into the LCARA repeater at points closer, but you would also be giving your neighbor hams the ability to go into your 440 repeater and hit the LCARA repeater. Just a thought for y'all. That's what I would have done and what I have done.
My repeater links with another repeater and all I need is a Simplex transceiver radio connected through my repeater controller and a yagi pointed at his repeater. Our arrangement quadrupled the coverage of his repeater. People could get into his repeater through mine from three different sides that he couldn't see and people could get into my repeater from further out where I couldn't see. All in all it worked out well for us. You would essentially be doing the same thing except y'all would just be setting it up for LCARA. You're halfway there. All you need is a low-power 20 W repeater and either a duplexer for transmit/receive or a separate receive antenna and a repeater controller and you're ready to do it. In such a manner you could be in your backyard with an HT and hit LCARA anytime you wanted.
Another thing your local repeater could be used for is if y'all wanted to talk local you could touch tone the command to turn off your Simplex VHF radio to LCARA and y'all are on your own UHF repeater. When you're done y'all turn the link back on. You can do this quite easily by grabbing a hold of a couple of Motorola CDM mobile radios and building a low-cost repeater. Where I live my repeater covers 125 me give or take 25 mi. No kidding. But that's using 100w repeaters. You can get to 50 Watts on your inexpensive for repeater by putting fans on the transmitter or by switching to a more powerful transmit radio with a hefty heat sink.
Great video Brian - love this series. It was great meeting you and your brother on the bus at Dayton - KB4TAD
Yes, nice to meet you as well. Chris KY4CKP
@@LCARAHAMRadio and thank you for the LCARA pin Chris!
Your vertical beam is installed incorrectly. Installing a vertical beam on a vertical mast where the mast passes past the boom of the antenna will result is a distorted pattern and degraded gain. The mast acts like an extra element in the wrong place. Vertically polarized beams should be installed on a horizontal cross boom.
They need a stand off bracket for the yagi
Можно лёгкую яги крепить за хвост бума.
I would think you would want that yagi isolated from the pole? I don't see how the pole isn't going to affect the performance of the antenna.
monsalve ,hay 7 compañeros detenidos !!!!
Hello! Just curious if adding the radials to the gp-6 helped with a better signal from the LCARA repeater?
A comet gp-9 will give you 2.1 more db gain and a Yaesu 2980 would give you 30 more watts. Those 2 things would be a huge improvement. Still a very nice setup
Good onya mate!
ive got a 64 im about to put in the air need to get in gear
Is that tower designed to climb? Is that a BX Tower? I thought they were made to tilt to add the antenna and stand the tower up afterwards. Those tower rugs are to thin to stand on. Also with two guys on that particular tower without any guide wires looked to be quite dangerous. Please do a search on this tower for climbing purposes. Seriously. It may save your life. I am not being a wise guy or a know it all. I have climbed many different towers and I have made mistakes in which I had to learn the hard way, just saying. Be safe and I wish you all the best.
15:22 scared the shidd out of me I thought it was tipping.
That's awesome but at what point do you reach diminishing returns?
I'm in Florida at 175' ABSL
I have a push-up mast that is 33' but starts 3' off of the ground so 36' total. I have a Diamond X300A on it and it performs very well. Full quieting on simplex to machines of similar setup up to 25 miles so far. I very easily make repeaters to 51 miles and beyond depending on their setup.
You say your vertical antenna is a Comet GP6?
Do y'all think there are gains to be made going higher with that antenna and power? The receive is only going to be so good.
Your thoughts please.
Look up David Casler here on RUclips. He has an in depth explanation of how high your antenna should be based on frequency…
Your concrete mix looks to be a bit too wet... You're going to lose a bit of strength that way...
Well, I just took down the old tower and working on getting the new one wired and ready to go. I got a few items going on it and going to point down your way as soon as I can. A couple of weeks from now at least. Let Josh know I will be pointing at his house for a chance for some 2m simplex.... lol... should be interesting. Great video as always. Keep it up guys. de W9KHP
What is your distance to the repeater?
46 miles. Thanks for watching!
Please don't free climb towers...Love the video otherwise but this needs to be said.
Well that concrete looked way too watery with next to no gravel. I note that you also under-poured!
What type of coaxial cable are you using?
mpd-400 superflex. Thanks for watching!
Going to take down and reclaim a 40 foot tower sat wish me luck lol
5:44 it is true that you would fall 8ft. But at least in Germany you have belt energy absorber for this case. If you hit a speed which is unsafe, the energy absorber will rip and thus break you gently.
Your chosen option is to fall down and hit the ground with maximum speed.
I think my option sounds better than yours.
I run a Comet GP-9 & Comet Seams To Make A Really Good Antenna IMHO..I Can Hear Lcara from Here a little bit from time to time but not Enough to get in it ! But The Comet GP-9 is Like 17ft Long to..lol. But its only about 25ft off the ground !..for Now..! But A Beam Should Always Work a Lot Better IMHO !
I also would be using the gp9 sense where he's at is somewhat flat. As long as the antenna can see over the top of the little bitty bump of a mountain, he's going to get straight into the LCARA repeater without having to use a yagi. The gp6 has lower gain and a rounder lobe. But what he's got is working, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I did suggest that he go to a cross-band repeater system, and if that were the case, I would put up a 9dB UHF antenna further local area repeater. That would concentrate the signal at the horizon.
I don't want to get to running my mouth here, but I tried an experiment once that blew people away. I live on top of a mountain at 6,500 ft. Working on a discone I could talk darn near anywhere. But then I switched to a 3dB gain antenna, and people closer to me at the bottom of the mountain said they couldn't hear me as well, and I explained to them about how an antenna achieves gain. Then I switched to a 6dB gain antenna can the people at the bottom said they could barely hear me. And then I switched to the 90 dB gain antenna, and they couldn't hear me, but a ham 400 Mi away also on top of a mountain could hear me just fine. The moral of the story is to pick the antenna for your situation. If y'all's on flat ground go to the 9db and you'll increase your range quite a bit. Especially on VHF because your signal is going to hug the curvature of the earth and go up and over it about 20%.
Electrical tape is the worst way to secure cable to anything, much less wrap connectors. Always will take on some water regardless of how tight or how much is used. In the Satellite TV business for over 30 years and seen more cable/connectors problems due to using it in this manner. The heat shrink may save the connection from moisture issues. Typical of homeowner/DIYers.
Yall have clearly never watched tree work get done. You would all blow a gasket if this upsets you.
KI4RWO and his high visibility climbing wear 😅
Nobody wants to spend more money on safety. Lol
Your concrete “expert” needs some shoring up too.
Yagi wins
You need to say “over” at the end of your transmission instead of abruptly ending your transmission! The poor bloke at the other end was confused!
This guy has never worked in a place with a safety dept
Good video mate, but Ken the tower climber guy can’t be an expert scaffolder/climber. If he was he wouldn’t be wearing an Hawaiian shirt as his work clothes.
That's his signature lol! And yes, he's a professional tower climber.
You can't answer my question, I can't stay subscribed. Sorry guys
You are kidding, right?