AV-640 5 Band Vertical Antenna                    



Here's Dave  getting the thing to sit straight on the mount. 
This 35' antenna is a lot for one person to handle!
First Check of the SWR with the ICOM 740. 
Looks pretty darn good.


 

Tightening everything up and mounting the radials

 

 
Getting the resonant stub lengths set and tightened per the manual specs.
 


Close-up of the radials and mount system on the pipe stub

Here's the tower section all ready to go. 
Note the 1/8" stainless cable guy wires. They went out to turnbuckles and to 8 ft fence posts pounded all the way into the ground.

 

Here's the SWR check "for credit" on each band--written down on a scratch pad. SWR was 1.5:1 or less on each band using the mid-band settings from the manual. That' is about as good as it gets. 
 		 Tower section in the shop prior to welding up the 1" black pipe stub mount. Please ignore the mess. My dad and I know where everything is!


I do own the rest of the tower and the long term plan is to get it up n the air 



Brought the IC-740 out of the closet for the outside check. 
 		  

Dave's Comments:

1) The antenna was fairly complex to assemble. 
2) Probably 10 hrs assembly time.
3) Had to build a custom mounting system to get it 10 ft off the ground.  Used a top tower section of a tower I had waiting for a beam.
4) The 35'+ length was a challenge to mount with one person!
5)SWR was "good to go" at the base on all 6 bands! 
6) First contact was CX8ABF in Montevideo, Uruguay
7) I am pretty impressed with this $400 antenna.




Coax switch hidden near the two antennas.
All coax runs are inside pvc water-pipe.

Shot of the 40m dipole.
 

Silver minibox box in center is the station control
It has some power and audio switching in addition to the remote coax relay toggle switch.
Read a QST article that Dave wrote on how to build a junkbox station control system

  

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05-15-14