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Base Station Antenna Interaction

TimmyTheTorch

Active Member
Dec 11, 2022
254
193
43
Northeast Wisconsin
I currently have a Maco V58 mounted on a heavy duty 32 foot mast. It works well where it is. I also have a new Maco M104C beam still in the box that I will be putting up in the next month or two. My plan A is to install a 40 foot tower, mount the M104C horizontally and the V58 above it with the ground planes removed. After making some calls, it turns out that this is currently going to cost a @#$$-load of money to do mainly because of excavating a 4x4x4 hole and getting 2.5 to 3 yards of concrete delivered here and moved about 220 feet from the road to the tower location. Folks that do this type of work are super-busy with little interest in handling any deliveries less than 10 yards of concrete and I have zero interest in manually mixing 3 yards of concrete.

This has me thinking of maybe just leaving the V58 on the pole it is on but moving it to the NE corner of my house and standing up another 33 foot, heavy duty, guyed pole with the Yaesu G-800DXA rotor and horizontal M104C about 35 feet away from the V58. The rotor says it will support a maximum of 8 sq. ft. wind load when pole mounted and the M104C is about 6.3 sq ft, so there is some wiggle room but not a whole lot. I can't put the V58 above the M104C on the pole-mounted rotor because this combination exceeds the maximum wind load rating for the rotor.

If my sheet-metal worker Dad was still with us I am sure he would come up with something that would allow the rotator to be securely mounted to a plate at the top of the pole instead of having to use the pole mount extension. So many things pass by where loved ones are missed.

Will a ground plane antenna and a horizontal beam antenna interfere very much with each other's propagation patterns if they are about 35 feet apart? The V58 will be to the north side of the beam and my contacts rarely come from the north. I think the dense trees at my north property line already act as a decent barrier.
 

You can rent cement mixers.
Agreed, but lifting 80 or more 40 to 50 pound bags of cement multiple times is not something my twice surgically repaired spine and spinal cord really wants to do. I am still considering hiring a few local lads to do the cement lifting part for me and using a rented mixer. Sometimes I have been known to not use the best judgement when it comes to which tasks I should be undertaking. Just ask my wife. :)
 
Don't know about your soil but I have always been able to dig in a few days. Just go a little at a time.

Next; You want a "short load" concrete delivery company. This is a smaller truck that can go places those huge mixers cannot access.

Don't use bags and a mixer IME(in my experience) way too much time and mess.
 
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Hire a few laborers, or supply some beer to the buddies, and have them dig a hole just the right size for a 55 gallon drum. Lower the barrel into the hole. Then, hold a garden hose into the drum and have your buddies pour the dry concrete into the barrel. No need to mix. The concrete will absorb the water and set up as usual.
 
Why a 4'x4' hole and base pour? That seems like a lot of overkill.
The second-hand free-standing Universal Tower 15-40 I had planned on using requires a 4' x 4' x 4' concrete base as per their documentation. That plan got shot down when the utility companies came to check the lot and marked at least two underground services where I wanted to put the tower.

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I work in the utility industry and if you want to put your tower near those underground lines you can do that. You just have to excavate carefully and don't damage those lines. I have 2 towers about 40 feet apart with large yagis on them and no issues with interaction between them.
 

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