A special working bee was held on 16 June to start the repair work on the damaged 20M yagi antennas. Thanks to volunteers ZL2BSJ, ZL2TTS, ZL2AOV, ZL2UDF, and ZL1AZE who assisted with the work.

The forecast was for a cold southerly blast to blow through, but fortunately this turned out to be not as bad as expected, so we were able to make good progress on the work.

The damaged Noth America 20M yagi was lowered to the ground and taken to the shack for some serious surgery.

The broken feed line to the Europe 20M yagi was replaced and this yagi is now fully operational.

We also lowered the western leg of the Euope Short Path Vee #2 antenna, so that a tangled steel wire (broken catenary wire that had been supporting the North America 20M yagi) could be removed. When resurrecting this leg we decided to increase its height above ground, by raising the termination point to the top of pole #11. The latter was a little complicated, as we also had to thread the leg concened over the top of the northern leg for the USA Short Path Vee #2 antenna.

The outstanding tasks for the next Activity Day (or working bee) are the rebuilding and installation of the North America 20M yagi, including a new supporting catenary wire.

Posted by ZL1AZE on June 16, 2006