Antenna Takedown – Completed

I returned from Ohio on Tuesday, April 8. There were still a lot of antennas, cables, and tower sections that needed to come down the hill.

There was one antenna remaining; the C31xr at 40′. I kept this one for last so I could still make a few QSOs. The CQMM contest on April 12 and 13 included the final QSOs from the station.

April 16-19, 2025

Some of the Rohn 45G sections from Tower 1 were starting to show their age, with some rust in places. With the towers on the ground and moving day still a month away, it was the perfect time to do preventative maintenance. I took advantage of a few warm days to paint some of the sections.

I purchased some ZRC 10002 Cold Galvanizing Compound from Amazon. It was almost $70 for one quart! Decided to use a brush to paint with, so I would maximize the use of this precious resource.

I had a lot of time to think during this process. I finally decided the appropriate word to describe painting a tower is “tedious.”

April 23, 2025

I spent some time hauling all the tower sections from Tower 1 down the hill, as well as rolling up all the guy wires.

I also got the temporary guy wires ready so we could move quickly when the team arrives tomorrow.

April 24, 2025

The tower crew of Mark KW1X, Martin AA1ON, and John N1PGA arrived around 10:30 am. It was a beautiful sunny day that was the perfect temperature for working outside. The bugs were starting to make an appearance, so we were very glad we had done so much of the work in March.

The C31xr is a big antenna with 14 elements and weighs almost 90 pounds. I removed the elements on each side of the boom-to-mast clamp to make some extra space. This also resulted in the antenna being very balanced, which made it easier to corkscrew around the one set of guy wires. All hands were busy, so no pictures were taken during the lowering.

It took just under 2 hours to get things rigged up and the antenna on the ground.

After the C31xr, the 5-element 6-meter beam was trivial! Although it did require me to stand on the top of the tower to reach it.

We removed the mast and the rotator and then started unstacking the tower.

This tower has a pier pin base, so it was necessary to rig some temporary guy wires before removing the set at 35′. This tower had been guyed to trees. What seemed like a good idea 30 years ago now presents some challenges.

Two of the 3 trees had died (probably from the stress). One of those was a hardwood and wasn’t going anywhere. The second was a pine tree that may have only had a few years until failure. The third tree was a larger pine that had grown around the cable holding the turnbuckle! It had grown so much that there was no way to get the turnbuckle out!

The temp guys were installed, two sections were removed, and we just had to lift the final section off the pier pin. The entire project was done around 3:30 pm. We headed off to lunch.

I returned later in the afternoon and started the disassembly of the C31xr.

Everything is now on the ground, and K5ZD/1 is off the air.

The antenna and tower staging are now almost complete.

The next task is to finish packing up the inside. It is amazing how much stuff is accumulated over the years!