Below shows the VE6WZ QTH and the US tower crank-up at full height.  On top at 30m is the 2 el 40m/80m yagi, and under that a Force-12 high band yagi at about 29m. The tower is shunt fed  for 160m.  There are about 80 short radials confined to the dimensions of my lot (from 5 to 15m). There are six stealth Beverages and a 4 dir. K9AY loop antenna behind the house...see below for my Beverage layout..  

Place your mouse over the picture to see the tower in the down position.

Who says you can't low-band DX from a city lot !!! Click here for a Google earth image of the VE6WZ QTH: http://www.qsl.net/ve6wz/QTH_ve6wz.jpg
The tower is kept down all the time, except when QRV

 

 

 RX Antenna Layout

to Europe:

A 130m end-fire phased Beverage pair, a 2 el short vertical array (50'spaceing) and the 160m RX Yagi at 100'

To South America:

A single 110m beverage wire, a 2 el short phased vertical array, and the 160m RX Yagi.

To Japan:

A single 100m Beverage wire, a 2 el short vertical array and the 160m rx Yagi

To Oceania:

A 2 el short vertical array and the 160m rx Yagi.

 

160m RX System at VE6WZ

The objective is to be able to actively phase the various RX antennas available using the DX-engineering NCC-1 phase box for either noise elimination, or for pattern and RDF development.  There are two en-echelon staggered 140m long beverages to EU which can be phased with the NCC-1, the 2 el 80m Yagi at 100' has vacuum relays at each element to switch in CAT-5 feedlines so that each element can be either actively phased with the NCC-1 unit, or passively phased with a homebrew unit. There are 2 short vertical pair arrays (spaced 50') which can also be either actively or passively phased. There is a single 100m JA beverage wire and a single 120m SA beverage wire which can also be routed through the the NCC-1 phase box and phased with another antenna.  The switching system also allows for any antenna, or passively phased pair, to be routed to the SUB-rx of the FTdx-9000d while any other antenna can be used on the main RX port to allow for antenna diversity RX.  For example, the EU en-echelon beverage pair will be used in the main RX of the radio, while either the passively phased  RX Yagi or EU short vertical array will be fed the the sub-rx
To install this tower i used a 50 tonne crane with a 110 foot stick ......from the front street over the house. This tower wieghs 1 ton. This is a shot of the base of the motorized crank-up for those who haven't seen one. The tower is  kept down all the time except when I'm QRV. Takes about 4 min. to get to full height...105 feet including mast.  The motor drive is now enclosed to protect it from icing-up in our cold winter weather.

See the photos below of the protective box and tarp for the motor drive. I just built the enclosure from "feel" using plywood and some brackets. (it is painted with silver paint).  The top slot for the cable is a strip of thick plastic...I think I cut it off the end of my son's "crazy carpet" snow slider. The tarp helps protect the motor and pulley box. It is held on with bungee cords.  Notice the green plastic garden/snow fence around the bottom of the tower...this also prevents the coax/cable from tangling or snagging under the base.  I attached it with cable ties.

All this was necessary for both preventing the coax from getting tangled as well as to prevent the drive from icing up in the cold.  The drive froze up a few times before I enclosed it.  The biggest problem was the two long threaded rods/ worm gears which move the cable along the drum.  These rods would freeze up when they got frosty/ covered in snow.  This would stall the drive.  No problem now since the drive has been enclosed.
My middle daughter....a nice day for a hike in the mountains.....just a 1 hr drive from the VE6WZ QTH in the beautiful Rocky Mountains.

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