This week at Davis, good weather allowed Trev to climb a mast and perform an antenna repair.

Mast climb for antenna repair

One of the many and varied jobs the SCTO (Station Communications Technical Officer) has to look after is the receive and transmit antenna farms on station. During a routine antenna and mast inspection of the receive antenna farm I noticed that one of our HF Vee wire antennas had damage from recent high winds. One of the top fly wires that connects between the open wire feeder and the active element had snapped.

This week a perfect weather window presented itself and I took the opportunity to climb, with the help from Derryn as my safety and tower rescue buddy.

Of course the broken fly wire had to be located at the top of the mast (22 metres) and would require me to climb to the top and make a repair, if possible, or lower the whole Vee antenna to the ground and make the repair. Luckily I could reach the broken wire and was able to repair it whilst at the top of the mast and take in the 360° views.

The receive HF antenna farm houses five directional Sloping Vee antennas and one Omni-directional Tandem Delta antenna. We use different combinations of these antennae when speaking via HF to aircraft or ships during the summer, or remote field parties.

Trevor Crews (SCTO)

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