Jan 12th, 2030 I sold the property in Mt Vernon, Texas (EM23) after being there over 20 years. I moves a few miles south to a little town called Winnsboro, Texas. I am now located in EM22. The radio station was all packed up and boxed for the move. It took 4 days to tear everything down from 20 years of building. I thought I would never be moving from that location. Things change, life goes on. SO now I’m a few miles from my daughter, who happened to decide to buy a new house 1.5 blocks away. Talk about getting closer to your kids in your old age.
My EM23 location was 4 miles outside of town on 4 acres. I had farm land on all sides of over 50-75 acres on all sides. I had zero RFI issues and the bands were always a joy to work. Now, I have set up the radios ( IC-7300/IC-9700) on the desk with just loops for 50/144 outside the window at 25 feet just to get on the air. I’m seeing a constant 2-3 S-units of noise floor at all times. This will have to be worked on. I strung a brand new Radio Wavz DX-80 OCF Di-pole last week 20 feet off the ground for testing. After 3 days it shorted out and is now junk. I always had good luck with this brand and antenna. I ran one for 6 years in EM23 with great results. We’ll see what can be done with it. It’s been on the cold side for the last few days with rain and makes it hard to do any work outside.
I have put the first 3 sections of new tower up and will continue to build it back as much as I can as weather permits. The base is a cut 10ft section down to 6 feet and 4 feet in a 2×2 slab of concrete. It’s bracket mounted to the roof’s eve at 10 feet, attached to the 2nd section of tower. I then places the 3rd section and slid the Hazer over that section. This will at least allow me to drop the antennas to be worked on down to roof level for maintenance if required. I’d rather work on antennas at 10 feet while standing on the roof, then 40 feet in the air hanging off the side of the tower. The mast will be the same mast used in EM23. A 2″ solid 1/8″ wall 20 foot mast. I have been using the mast for over 20 years. It can be seen in other location pictures I have posted here. The most I’m going to raise the tower is maybe 1 more 10 foot section. This will place the tower at at height of 35 feet. Add the mast and the top antenna will be standing just over the 50ft level. Far from the EM23 location with the tower at 55ft and the mast reaching 70ft height. But moving to the city does cause issue. I don’t have all the space for the guy wires required for that height. 35ft will be just enough to not use guys as the house bracket will provide support and only 20ft or so will be above that mark. I still have room for a 80M OCF Di-pole and will work on that AGAIN once it’s up.
Current I have a 6M and 2M on a temp tower just to listen to the bands. I have ordered a side arm mount with a 7 foot mast attached to stand off 36″ off the side of the tower. I’ll be stacking 2 each of the 2M loops and the 6M loop on this side arm at the top of the new tower. I used a single 2M loop for contest in the past at 35 feet and it worked great in unison with my M218XXX at 70 feet. This setup will give me a loop at about 40 feet with a stacked loop at the 35 foot level also. 3db gain over last location. Plans are to mount the M2-18XXX at the 50 foot level on the mast IF I can get clearance from the trees around the house. It is a 36 foot boom and requires a lot of room to spin. If that can be worked out the 33 foot boom on 432 and the even smaller boom for 1296 will be a breeze. The 5ele 6M beam will not be an issue. Still debating if I want to raise the A4S tri-bander with the 40M addon-kit or just work off the DI-pole. For the last 4 years the A4S has not been in the air and I was happy with the OCFDs results. But this was out in a low noise area. OCFDs tend have have a little higher noise floor and I was seeing it with testing. This will have to be worked on as I build back the station.
I created a YouTube channel of this move from start to finish. I’ll be posting update there in hopes to maybe help a few new hams getting setup. After all I am starting from scratch here. I have lots of gear to work with, but this location in the city will add issues I have never had to deal with. Higher noise floor, RFI, tower limits, and NEIGHBORS. Yes the one behind me has already started glearing as she saw me planing the first tower base. More tower and antennas scattered all over the yard, hundreds of feet of LMR-600 rolled up. I bet she thinks I’m nuts.. But ya, some of are! AT any rate follow me on YouTube, like, comment, and please subscribe!