Bushcomm HF Antenna Repairs

Post date: Mar 10, 2016 4:28:00 PM

The Club's Bushcomm broadband (3-30 MHz) antenna has been repaired and it's now fully functional. The antenna is installed on the roof of NIH's Building 11, the Central Power Facility, it's oriented East-West, and had served the Club reliably for many years until it's a failure in the fall. The repair work required lowering the 100+ ft.long, three-wire antenna from both ends, replacing a coaxial line and insulating antenna connector. The antenna and new line were then tested a number of ways using an antenna analyzer and a radio transceiver. The antenna work took place during a cold but clear evening in January 6th (2016), with hands-on contributions from Alford Taylor, KN3U, Andrew Mitz, WA3LTJ, and Victor Cid, W3CID. The job required the team to coordinate tasks with programmable digital pocket radio transceivers (a.k.a., smart phones). Participants reported that it was an uneventful but fun engineering work, with excellent results.Antenna line connection on the roof.

KN3U preparing to insulate antenna connector (warm water steam is coming out of the plant's exhaust vents).

(More pictures are available on our photo gallery)