Background: I discovered this old tower going for ?00 a few months ago. The amount of work to put it into production was so much that I just couldn't get motivated to start it. Additionally, there was some design issues regarding the height at it's minimum elevation due to the MQ3 mini-beam potentially colliding with the roof. In the lowered position, it needed to be higher. However, I finally made the effort and made it happen. Read on...
One person who is missed off this picture diary is Chris Colcough, G1VDP, who transported this across Birmingham in early summer 2004 for me. Actually, that's how I came to meet Chris - I was on GB3DX, discussing with Pete how I might transport this mast and up pops Chris "I can help"! And sure enough, so he did. Big thank you Sir.
Originally, there was this little stubby bit at the top of the mast, but I needed it longer which posed a problem because it was a "non-standard" size and a 2 inch sleeved extension wouldn't fit. I cut it off and had an internal sleeve made up as you can see here (Thanks to Doug's Father-in-law!).
And this was it before it was made. You can see the two different internal dimensions that it had to fit - that's a section of thick-walled 2-inch scaffold pole on the right and on the left, the top of the tower.
It's very strong and surprisingly heavy for aluminium.
Here it is with one side drilled and installed.
And here, bolted to the stub mast which will be under the rotator.
Fully secured in this shot with no noticable wobble.
Looks longer here.
This was a rusty write-off. I used one of those heavy duty sanding disks (thanks Reg) and an electric wire brush to remove the rust, then two coats of Hammertite. New braked winches are on order which will replace the worn out non-braked trailer ones shown here. Don't use non-braked winches on a tower because they might cause an accident if you let go whilst winding down. Worse still, you might damage the antennas!.
I didn't spend much time taking pictures of this, it was too much like hard work. In the end, I went down the road and bought an 18mm half inch socket drive (the only one I don't have!) instead of an adjustable spanner.
It's up and ready for the tower section.
By the way, these Multi Monte bolts are great. Just drill an accurate 10mm hole and wind them straight through the wood and brickwork - they cut their own thread. Monster!
Next job was to sort the tower and remove these awful blue letters. I've never heard of a Voyager Tower before but if you have, please let me know.
I thought a good wet'n'dry might get rid of all this nasty corrosion which made it look quite awful. It also didn't go down with the "war" department too well either.
Elbow grease soon started to make it look better
An hour later. You can start to see a shine in there somewhere.
You could eat your dinner off that.
I wasn't going to do all three sections but the contrast of new/clean and old/dirty is too great - perhaps a de-grease? They'll spend most of their life in the down position anyway but a good clean won't go amiss.
Time for a very tough deck brush and some Jif (Cif? Actually, I think it's Tesco's own :).
30 minutes later. Good call!
While all the sections are at maximum extension, I oiled the cables with this amazing stuff that my buddy gave to me (Thanks Doug). Starts liquid then 'dries' but stays oily.
Time to reassemble everything again. I started to chip the paint work, hammering these back into place with a block of wood. They're a snug fit. Don't worry, I painted them again in a minute...!
I've re-painted all the original nuts and bolts but I'm not touching the aluminium paint at the top of each section because 1) You won't see it and 2) it won't corrode, instead it'll just flake like this stuff did.
To think I was going to keep the old winches, there's two of them; the wind-up one (here) - and the tilt-over one (not fitted yet).
Sorted cable to wind-up winch (and the sun has got his hat on, hip, hip, hip horray :) !
I aligned the mast... (and the sun went back in).
.. so I could slide the hinge into place using thick long-lasting grease.
I've been waiting almost 20 years to use these split pins - all that "junk" does come in handy!
Fit the tilt-over winch.
Then take the strain...
I held it like this for 10 minutes to make sure everything was holding to plan!
Gingerly wound it fully home and fitted the locking bolt.
If you were a mouse, this is what it looks like!
All ready for phase six; cable runs and phase 7; antenna fitting. See also the 4:1 balun (top right photo) feeding the 40 meter full-wave horizontal loop.
Diamond V-2000 in background, now with company :)
In a couple of the photos, you can see some wire floating about. It's the 40 meter horizontal full-wave loop that needs lowered before the mast can be tilted over. You can see the teak-stained, 16 feet wooden stair rails being used as supports. I have two of these at the bottom corners of the garden, screwed to the fence posts. Not bad for a fiver (local wood merchant).
Slight design fault. The wall isn't 'level'! Another morning of design. I then coated the cut ends with that spray on grease that Doug gave me. It's like a soft candle wax so it should repel water until I find a more elegant solution.
I then wound it up to full height. It doesn't look high but the top of the mast here is exactly 13 meters. The rotator will go on here with another stubby mounting the MQ3 HF mini-beam and a ZL Special for 2 meters.
Rotator fitted. Unfortunately, it appears that one of the threads holding the lower bracket to the rotator base is mangled. It'll have to come off again and go to the engineers for a new thread.
It'll go quite a bit higher, but operationally I shall wind it up about 50% - that's around 40 feet or so at the very top. HF beam will be just a whisker over the rotator and the 2 meter ZL Special at the top.
Last edited by Callum, 21st November 2004.