West Tower Repairs 2006 - October 15, 2006 Work Party

1. The 20 meter yagi has been moved to a temporary, heavy duty 3" mast.
2. A hefty bracket system has been constructed and is in place to allow us to remove the rotator, rotator support plate, and lower thrust bearing before the crane is brought it.
3. The new 27 foot 3" mast (22 feet of it is 3", the balance is 2") arrived on Thursday as did the new thrust bearing.
4. We have worked out an approach that will allow us to remove the rotator before we remove the mast (i.e., before the crane is on site); this is the problem we discussed at the October 10, 2006 club meeting.

• Mark Aaker, K6UFO
• David Wolfe, AA6XV
• Randy Ahlkvist, KI6DDW
• Everett Palmer, KG6RYB

1. Randy has to finish fabricating the new thrust bearing mounting plate (needed because the top tower shelf already has two sets of bolt holes, neither of which is the right dimensions for the new thrust bearing; is being constructed of 3/4" steel plate).
2. Randy has to finish fabricating the new permanent boom to mast mounting plate (constructed of 1/2" airplane construction quality aluminum plate; more than three time thicker than the manufacturer supplied plate).
3. We will need to schedule one more day to move the rotator shelf plate on the tower and the rotator down to a spot 3 1/2 feet lower in the tower. This will likely be the week after this coming week.
4. Soon after that prep work is completed (within a day or two, ideally), we will have a crane come in to remove the old mast and install the new, replacement mast.

That's the update for now. For the moment, the really great news is the old fractured boom to mast plate has been replaced and much of the load on the damaged mast removed.

For now, the 15 and 20 meter yagis on the West tower are set fixed at about 75 degrees.