Completed Tower and Beams

I, like most hams have always longed for bigger and better antennas.  For most of my time as a ham I lived in sub-divisions that would only allow very discrete antennas.  None of these locations had trees large enough for hanging wire antennas, so my only antennas for many years were short verticals.  These verticals seemed to work pretty well, but didn’t provide opportunities for much DX because they were short and had only a few short radials.

After I moved to the country in 1993, I dreamed of installing a tower with a beam but for nearly 15 years my job kept me from spending much time much with my radio equipment or antennas.  In 2008 I retired and found I had a lot more time to spend with my radios.  I installed a 135′ doublet up 50 feet between two of our large trees and suddenly I was working DX I had never heard on my verticals.  After chasing DX for a couple of years using the doublet I got the itch to install some sort of beam antenna.  In the next several posts I will walk you my experiences (good and bad) of installing my dream tower and beams.