Ham Shack Upgrade Diary #2 - The Antenna

The new antenna is an older (exact age unknown) Mosely CL-33 triband yagi (20m, 15m, 10m). It came in pieces as the previous owner had disassembled it sometime ago.

Lucky for me the parts were all marked with either color coded paint or small marks made by the previous owner.

I used steel wool to clean off all the parts and cleared off my concrete patio to make room for the setup. With a fresh bottle of Noalox I started putting the elements back together and then the boom. Once the measurements were confirmed I start tightening all the bolts and I had an antenna ready for testing.

Thanks to Doug VE7VZ for making the trip out to Lumby and bringing his antenna analyzer along. It decided to rain at that exact moment but we soldiered forward and got it done.

The next day I was solo and it was fun and a little scary getting the antenna up onto the roof and then onto the tower. It deceiving from the photos but the boom of the antenna is just over 20 feet long, so to get it onto the roof I simply stood it on end and it reached the roof. Then I climbed the ladder and lifted it from the top (42 lbs) and set it onto the tower.

I didn't have the rotator ready at this point so my first tests were just getting the antenna onto the tower and rotating it manually.

I also took my VHF/UHF antenna and put it onto a section of fiberglass pole and stuck it onto the very top of the tower. Once the tower is extended this is getting that antenna up an extra 15 feet or so from it's original mount and cleaning up the rooftop a bit.

First install on the lowered tower (no rotator) just clears the chimney.

They look so small in the air, you need to see them on the ground for perspective.

Completed installation, fully extended, with the rotator installed as well