A second remote base is under way. This is a de-commissioned tower from a business I once owned. The landowner called when the new company said they no longer needed the tower. My suggestion was to donate the tower for non commercial ham radio use and they went for it. I will pay the landowner reasonable fees to use his land and for electricity. Here’s what it currently looks like. That white road is pointing toward Europe. Nice, right?
The plan is minimalist. We will put a 20′ aluminum mast at the top of the 30′ tower providing a total height of 50′. At the tip will be a light weight dipole cut for 20 meters made from two 16′ Jackite fiberglass poles (http://www.jackite.com/product_info.php?cPath=41_44&products_id=98). A dipole at 50′ models very well and should have lots of gain for DX on top of a hill that slopes down toward Europe. Ground conductivity is good in the area, too. It should give us the productivity on the high bands we are lacking at the first remote base. In 2002 this was the very first tower for our wireless ISP. It’s had a lot of communications pass through it in it’s 14 years of commercial use. Now in retirement we hope it will see a lot of DX.
W0QL - My Remote Base Journal 