MonstIR #1 Installation Step 3 - Read the Manual

Well guess what... it's raining again....which makes it a great time to read manuals...

 

and that 150'+ crane holding up the house down below me totally dwarfs my measly 85' tower in spite of the fact that my property is at least 25' higher than the street...

 

Talk about tower envy... at least no one can complain about my tower being too big...

 

Well the good news is that I finally finished the wiring harness... tested every connection...every combination of wires.. tested the long 200' cable and the shorter wiring harness independently... everything worked..taped and taped and taped to waterproof it.. probably will silicon tape it and liquid tape it to be sure...  Used "Stuff" inside connectors to make sure the water stayed out and will use connector protector to make sure the connections stay working.. hopefully with all these precautions we wont have to take the antenna down in a year to troubleshoot it...

 

On Thursday they finally FedExed me the assembly manual...and today I talked them into sending it to me electronically... I can post it on my web site...but it is rather large... about 60MB...in 3 sections.. so you probably don't want me to..until they distill it down into a manageable size...

 

Made several copies of the MonstIR manual and the 4 Element Manual for my assembly team to read.. figured the more they knew about what they were doing the more likely we would not make too many fatal errors...

 

The Manual is well illustrated with pictures of the assembly... they included a parts list so I could check that we have everything...Clearly it still is a work in progress and it contemplates that one would use a 4' ground mounted pole for on the ground assembly then hoist the entire completed MonstIR up onto the tower...

 

As we will not be building it according to plan, the instructions are at best a guideline with the pictures being our final target...

 

Having an assembly planning meeting tomorrow with K6QK...we are going to trial assemble some of the boom parts to get practice with manipulating them.. I will be using NAALOX which is an antioxidant...on the boom parts to make sure that they do not seize...

 

Due to the close proximity to the ocean.. [one of the requirements for an ocean view]... the salt air is rather corrosive.. am considering painting all exposed aluminium prior to assembly to minimize corrosion...

 

 

..with the rain tonite ... and the contest this weekend .. I have already been informed that my crew of contesters will be unavailable.. so best guess is the weekend of the 12th... 

 

Still have an enormous amount of prep work to do...if it does not rain...

 

FYI - I have set up a new web site at www.ky6la.com  which will have all the MonstIR stuff on it...