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I am replacing the Maco V58 on a 30 foot pole with a 40 foot tower with manual winch, Maco M104C mounted horizontally and the V58 above it without the groundplane radials. The antenna arrived yesterday.


Now all that is left is:

  1. Snow to melt and ground to firm up.
  2. Get Digger's Hotline person to come out and verify no services run where the main tower hole will be dug. I am 99 percent certain we are okay because the same area was excavated 5 years ago when we had an egress window installed as part of having our basement finished. But if there is a problem, stop until a plan B is devised.
  3. Purchase used 40' Rohn 25G tower. I have one located a few hour drive away, just waiting for the seller and I to be able to arrange the pickup date/time. And hope it is in as good condition as seller states. If not, I also know where to find a 40 foot tall US Tower 15-40 a few hours away too. If I end up buying the 15-40 instead it has the advantage of no guy wires, anchors, guy wire bracket) but requires a bigger hole and larger concrete pour (should only increase cost a bit due to less-than-full concrete delivery surcharge..
  4. Purchase tilting base plate, wall mounting bracket, guy wire rope, 10' schedule 40 or 80 aluminum mast (not sure what OD yet), guy wire base posts.
  5. Purchase or make a guy wire bracket for the tower.
  6. Purchase Yaesu G-800DXA rotor, rotator plate and controller cable.
  7. Test rotator to make sure it works.
  8. Purchase (and test) more RG-213 coax, any additional grounding supplies.
  9. Take down existing antenna and pole.
  10. Dig 3'x3'x4' or so hole for tower base. I do not plan on doing this digging myself. Age has tempered my male ego.
  11. Dig/drill one or two 12" hole for pipes for guy wire bases. See above about digging this myself.
  12. Fill big-a$$ holes with several yards of concrete, position anchor rods/anchor pipes and post for winch. See above about age/ego.
  13. Install 3 to 5 guy wire anchor points on appropriate roof perimeter locations.
  14. Temporarily install one tower section to get exact placement for required mounting bracket (the highest I can install the mounting bracket is about 10' due to shape of roof), then install mounting bracket and remove tower section.
  15. Assemble tower, do a test run of standing it up by itself to make sure the winch works as expected, then lower.
  16. Install rotor plate, rotor, mast.
  17. Assemble and tune M104C and V58 on ground, probably about 10' up is most I can do.
  18. Install M104C and V58 on mast.
  19. Run coax and rotator control cables.
  20. Stand up tower, finish grounding/running stuff inside, etc.


After listing this general task list, the V58 is not working too bad at all! :) I have no specific deadline in mind, just whatever can reasonably be accomplished given all the things that can intercede.

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