Antennas
Antennas are of
course what originally
drew the attention of the amateur community and thus caused
N6IJ to
fall into the hands of the ham radio operators.
It's easy to see why we were interested in this antenna. It's massive! With it's ability to tune the whole amateur spectrum, it would have been a terrible waste if it had been scrapped.
The LPDA wasn't the only immense
antenna at the site. In
addition there was also an 80 Meter discone (seen at the
right). Yes 80
Meters! Those are real telephone poles that
the wires are strung between! With these two antennas it is
easy to see
why the station is so remarkable as to warrant the effort
that
initially went into saving it (and still goes into saving
it).
No matter how impressive the
original
antennas were, 2 antennas does
not a world class contest
station make! If the site was to be used for HF contesting,
especially
if it was to be used for a
high power multi-operator station, there would have to be
more. The
amateur community as always rose to this challenge.
Antennas, towers
and parts were donated from a number of sources.
A
three
element
tri-bander
on
a
military mast and a four element 20
Meter mono-bander fixed on Europe were installed
immediately. In
addition several wire antennas have been added to the site.
You will
find an 80M inverted V, an East facing 2 element wire beam
for 40
Meters, and an Extended Double Zepp. Many other antennas lie
waiting to
be assembled and mounted including a 6 element 10 Meter
Yagi, a 5
element 15 Meter Yagi, two 4 element 20 Meter Yagis, a 3
element 40 / 5
element 20 Meter Yagi, two 2 element 40 Meter Yagis, a
KT-34XA
tri-bander, a Telerex tri-bander and an insulated 135 foot
broadcast
tower! Already the site has the capability of hosting a
multi-transmitter operation and the additional antennas will
only help
matters!
