I bought a Tennadyne T6 log periodic antenna. Sorta my Christmas gift to myself. It arrived yesterday and I’ve started to assemble it.

Also picked up a Yaesu 2800DXA rotor and am going to locate it at about 5’ above the base of my tower so I can do maintenance on it without having to climb to the top. Will probably have to make an extension for the rotor control cable.

If I can get this assembled over the next week or so I hope to have the beam up and running early February. I’ve decided to replace all the existing cables with LMR400 cables - all home runs. Also going to raise two additional spares for a future antenna or two.

Nice! I'm surprised at how short the turning radius (20') is on that model. LPDA's are intriguing. They seem to be fairly scarce in amateur circles, at least for the low bands. I'd be interested in hearing your impressions of its performance once you get it up and running.

I will be listening for you over here in Richmond, VA. With that kind of hardware you will surely be able to beam a signal 10K miles.

That would be a good contact to make. I will be running either my FT2000 or my IC781.

Well have you worked DXCC with your new T6 yet?

my tower contractor was over on Saturday measuring out a few pieces to install my rotor. He is fabricating a plate, and the rotor is going to be installed at just below eyeball height so that I can work on it without climbing 50'.

The antenna has been assembled, I need to make a few minor revisions to it - turns out I have a potential dissimilar metals issue and I'm contacting Tennadyne to see exactly what it is I'm dealing with, and hope to have it craned into place within the next two weeks. I already have a 50' shaft, sleeve bearings and a thrust plate fabricated. If all goes as planned the antenna will be at 55' AGL.

Will post a few pictures as its being installed

It sounds like your project is moving right along. Where is the dissimilar metals issue? Is it within the antenna parts or at the point of attachment? I can't recall reading anything about that issue when I read the very positive reviews on that antenna awhile back.

How many bearings will you have on that 50' pole below the thrust plate on top?

You're going to have a great HF setup when you get finished!

for the most part its all stainless, but I have four short stubs from the two 'backbone' tubes that appear to have a coating which has darkened the metal, and its not just on the outside of the tube, its on the inside as well.

It may be nothing, or it may be something, but I'm going to spread the two backbones apart, remove the hardware and add a small amount of chemical etchant to get back to the base metal. I will probably work on that this week.

Going to put on 3 sleeve bearings going up the tower - nothing fancy but just want to negate wobble. Also thinking about potential vibration issues from Strouhal vorticies on the circular section as we can get some pretty high sustained winds here in the canyon.

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Strouhal vorticies

Had to look that one up. Just learned something new for Monday and it's not even noon. Thanks!

Remember, if you put up an antenna and it stays up it either wasn't big enough or high enough.

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Originally posted by 4MUL8R:
I will be listening for you over here in Richmond, VA. With that kind of hardware you will surely be able to beam a signal 10K miles.

“Long Path” is so much more fun and interesting than “Short Path” radio transmissions.
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