Antenna Farm


This was our antenna farm. Click on any of the thumbnails to see the full sized image.


The tower on the left is one of less than 15 original Telrex "Big Bertha" rotating pole towers still in operation.  It was fabricated by a company named Lingo, Inc., from steel fabricated at the Camden Shipyards in New Jersey.  It originally belonged to the late Gordon Norris, W7FU, and has been in our possession since 1992.  This free standing and rotatable 112' tower supports  antennas covering all the bands between 2 meters and 20 meters.  Included are stacked 4-element Yagis for 20 meters, stacked 6-element log periodics for 17,15, and 12 meters, a 6-element 10 meter Yagi, a pair of stacked 7-element 6 meter Yagis, and twin  17-element 2 meter Yagis extended 10 feet above the tower's top.  The lower antennas for the stacks are below the tree line and cannot be seen in the photo.  All antennas, with the exception of the 2 meter antennas, were designed and fabricated by us. 


This 100' Rohn-45 tower supports a unique 3-element full size trapped log periodic that covers 40 and 30 meters. This antenna was also designed and fabricated by us.  The longest element is 66 feet. Directly above the log periodic is a 5’ .4 f/d dish for 1296 and 2304MHz, which replaced a quad group for 23cm. The next photo shows a closer view of the new dish.


Here is a closer view of the grid dish. Installed in the fall of 2012, it provides approximately 3dB more gain that the old configuration. It's really made a difference in both transmission and reception.


This is a close-up of the 1296/2304 antenna feed, designed and fabricated by us. The feed consists of two concentric loops fed by a dual mode balun. The white shroud above the feed is intended to keep rain and snow off of the actual feed point.


This shows the vertically stacked 13 wavelength M2 antennas for 432MHz, which were installed in the fall of 2004.



This is a commercial grid dish used for 5760MHz.  Its gain is 29dBi.




Here's a photo of WB7BST (in her blonde phase) applying the fifth of six coats of paint to the Big Bertha back in 1992. 




This is one of four loading coils for a 75 meter 2-element rotary beam presently under construction.  The coils were fabricated using #2 aluminum wire in our machine shop, and feature welded connections on the non-tempered materials.


This is one of several tuning houses.  This one provides direction reversing for a pair of 2-element side-by-side 80 meter Yagis fed in phase. 




"The old world wide web".  This is the 80 meter open wire feedline, neatly dressed in silk during the autumn months courtesy of our local spiders.