My antennas & towers

The latest info on top, in chronological order. Click on the pictures for full size views. There is also some news in the blog at this site   (here is the url if you cannot find it:   sm7sjr blog  )

Shacks: 
home-shack” is  my home office and my sort of speak ordinary seat for ham-operations
workshop-shack”   is in my workshop approx 150 metres from my homeshack

Currently :

Towers 15 -30m AGL.

2-el 40m yagi, Cushcraft
16 x 3-el LFA yagis for 2m by InnovAntennas
3-el OPDES yagi for 20m by InnovAntennas
1 x 12-el “432EME12” yagi for 70cm, by M2inc (soon to be 8 x 12 el)
4 x 12 el Ultra LFAs for 2m in the workshop to be assembled.
7-el LFA yagi for 6m, WOS2 by InnovAntennas
Dipoles for 80m and 40m
Vertical for 2m FM local-talk and a discone antenna
RX antenna for ADS-B

All rotating of antennas is done with AlfaSpid rotators

APRS iGATEs:
APRS igate for 2m. 144.800 Mhz. SM7SJR-2. 4el M2 yagi verticaly polarized and beaming north, about 45m AGL.
APRS igate for 2m. 144.800 Mhz. SK7DI-2. Vertical antenna.
2 more APRS igates or digipeaters being planned

2024-Jan-16

Putting up 3 yagis for ADS-B rx in the 30m tower. Maybe at 26m AGL. Pointed SE, E and NE from me. Will connect to one ADS-B rx each. And later on move the small vertical antenna I am now listening with to the same height in this tower. Fun to test/experiment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the 4 x LDF4-50 cables that are connected to the ADS-B antennas, entering the shack from the tower:

 

 

 

 

 

2023-Oct-09

 

 

 

 

2m antenna and 70cm antenna array in the making. Soon there will be winter so I am eager to get the antennas up in the air before the snow comes here.

2023-Sep-16

 

 

 

 

It is far to many antennas on the ground, but they will be mounted in the towers before the winter. So I will get back in the airwaves again soon.

2023-Aug-13

4 x 12 el LFAs for 2m with stackingcables attached, ready to get the last finetune and then assembled to the alu frame. In the background a boom for a force 12 antenna for 5 bands (20m-10m).

 

 

 

 

Copper plate attached to the HF-remote shack. I will mount surgeprotectors directly in the plate for coax in/outlets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some surge protectors in the VHF-remote shack:

 

 

 

 

2023-Aug-05

My 4 x 12 el LFAs for 2m are assembled and “delivered” to my tower-area.

 

 

 

 

And this is the old alu frame, which I used for when I did EME in the 90s. Now reinforced. I will mount 4x12el LFA for 2m and 8x12el M2 antennas for 70cm on this frame. And it will be at 30m AGL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2023-Jan-07

Copperplate for the cable inlets, will be populated with surge protectors. And connected to groundrods/copper wire and plates in the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2022-Dec-24

Christmas eve… I took a photo of one of the cable in/outlets in the shack between my home-shack and my workshop-shack. This does not look supernice, so might be redone. 4 x 1/2″ coax to my home-shack and 4 x 1/2″ + 2 x 7/8″ to the workshop-shack. And fibrecable and signalcables (in the grey pipe) to the workshop-shack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a view of my solarpanels. Newly installed and not yet in operation. The 20m tower in front might be taken down as I have aquired a little bit more land I will most likely move it.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the cableinlet to my homeshack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2022-Dec-03

 

 

 

 

 

 

A picture of the “trenche”, with cables and some pipes and stuff. This is 2/3rd of it. Quite a job!  Leading from the microwave shack to my home shack.

 

2022-Nov-02

A view of the remoteshacks as they are in place. Green shack = VUSHF, and grey = HF.

 

 

 

 

 

Under transportation…

 

 

 

 

 

2022-Oct-17

Digging project continues. Putting coax, fibre, signal cables as well as water and so forth in the ground. As usual, click on picture to get a larger version of the image.

Having a machine as this sure helps a lot!

 

 

 

 

Various cables and hoses to be buried….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preparing a spot for a shack for interconnect and coax distribution.  And the cables laying on the ground on the 2nd picture, shall be routed to the microwave shack where my 30m Alta tower is located.

 

 

 

 

 

This is my former VUSHF remote housing, will now be the interconnect and HF-remote housing instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cables on the way from my shack to the “interconnect” shack and then onwards to the “to become” microwave shack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2022-Aug-28

Digging, more cables to go into the ground

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new shack for housing of logics and PAs close to the towers, this one will be for VUSHF:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2021-Aug-06

Mounting the 2el 40m antenna at 20m AGL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2020-Jul-04

Here we go. 2 towers, 30m each.

Towers mounted.  View from the top of one tower, you can see the other nearby tower as well as the 3 others about 100-150m away.

2020-Jun-23

Towers on the ground, assembled and ready to be mounted.

2020-Jun-13

3-el OPDES for 20m and 7 el LFA WOS2 for 6m assembled. Towers in the background, next week or the week after… will all be put in place.

2020-Apr-22

Fitted the rotator and the top bearing in one of the 30m towers. Rotator is a AlfaSpid BIGRAK. Also mounted is the 16 * 3 el LFA for 144MHz.

2020-Mar-22

Fitted the rotator and the top bearing in one of the 30m towers. Rotator is a AlfaSpid BIGRAK.

2020-Mar-17

I climbed up to the top of my 30 metre high tower today. Just to check out some cablings and so on. Here is a view from the ground.

2020-Feb-01

My quarterwave vertical for 40m with about 40 radials.

My 80m vertical, not yet QRV.

The stainless steel plate in the top of the 30m tower.

Tube in the ground to get the cables out to the “towershack”.

2019-Oct-19

Closeup of one of the 30m towers.

Closeup of the other 30m tower.

M20 bolts to connect the first 2 sections

M16 bolts to connect the next sections

And 3 times M16 bolts to connect the top sections (each section is 7,5 metres long)

2019-Sep-29

Both towers assembled on the gound. 30m each.

2019-Sep-21

Enabling coax cables run between the towers.

2019-Aug-21

Pictures of more work involving concrete. Not so fun but nice when it is done. This time the 22,5 metres towers will grow to 30 metres in height. Weight of all the conrete? 17,5 tonnes!

2018-Sep-14

Lowering the mast bases at the new QTH. See the 30m tower in the background? That is also mine, what used to be my remote QTH.

Transporting the mast bases from my old QTH. 14 tonnes each.

2014-Nov-28. Pictures of the M2 LogPeriodic antenna (for 7Mhz and 10-30MHz) mounted at approx 21m AGL. In the background: the 30m tower.

20141127_JO87EB_M2LPA-2

20141127_JO87EB_M2LPA

2012-Aug-29

The 30m tower assembled and mounted.

2012-July-30

The 30m tower assembled and (almost) ready to be mounted.

13-Aug-2011

Some towers being delivered… Yes my permits are ok now, so the project continues. Who is in the truck? Well SM7EKU of course.

And the 20m towers being raised. This tower will later on host my logperiodic antenna for the HF bands.

29-June-2010

I got to be QRV on some band, some where! Hi. Got a bay of 4 yagis on 70cm on the pole where my 23cm dish will be. So this is a temp installation, but it works. So far 2 EME initials on 70cm, but will do some more before I will take the array down and start to assemble the 23cm dish.

31-January-2010

Not really the best weather to mount antennas. Will leave it be for now.

29-November-2009

During my awaiting for the final permits to raise the towers, yes the permits has been halted by the authorities…anyway, I decided to start the mounting of the 5m dish for 23cm. Below is a picture of it, it is about 3m high and bolted to the concrete with 10 pcs of 12x115mm expander bolts and 2 psc of 16mm expander bolts. I do not believe this mount will fall in any of the Swedish storms, hi hi.

1-November-2009

This is the way it looks when all the forms are gone and the concrete is all done. It feels very good to have reached this level. Now I am going to let the concrete harden, at least for three weeks.

31-October-2009

All the forms have concrete in them. The guys did fill them up a few days ago when I was not at home. This is another 3 cubic metres of concrete. So totally it is nearly 15 tons of concrete for this tower plus the long irons casted into the mountain. If this tower falls down, nothing will stand! I am going to disassemble all the forms tomorrow.

26-October-2009

All the forms for the tower mounts in place. M24 bolts, 1m long, 4 of them in every “foot”.

Closeup into one of the forms.

23-October-2009

Here we go, this is the form for the concrete plate for the 30m tower, in place.

Starting to fill it up with concrete…

And here we are, almost 4 cubic metres (or 8,9 Tons) of concrete later…

10-October-2009

The trees around the towers are taken down. I will get even more free sight for my 23cm EME activities. Near the camera is the pole for mounting the guy wires, as well as the copper wire for the grounding. To the right is the plate for the 5m dish for 23cm. To the left is the mount for the 20m tower.

29-September-2009

The big concrete “foot” for my 20m antenna on its way down in the ground. It really took some thinking to get it down there, thanks to all the guys involved so we could make it happen.

And here it is down in the ground:

And here is the concrete plate for my 5m dish for 23cm:

28-September-2009

Here we go. One of the counterweights for the 20m tower in place, so is the copper wire for the ground.

And here is the hole for the casted concrete or betongklump as we say in Swedish, for the 20m tower. Tomorrow it will be fitted in the hole.

19-September-2009

This is how it looks when I have casted concrete and fastened 20 or so of the iron reinforcements which will go up into the 4 concrete “foots” for the tower.

18-September-2009

A guy helping me drill 24 holes in the mountain for my 30m tower. Each hole is 240cm deep and 32mm diameter.

September-2009

This is the place where my guywired 20m tower will be, hosting 6m and HF antennas. Placement will be about in the middle of the side of the wall. On the right hand side my 5m dish for 23cm will be located.

This is the spot for my 30m standalone tower. This tower will host VHF and up antennas. And server as a testbed for antenna design work.