The center is extending the outside patio by the shack as a planned upgrade to host larger crowds and the likely increased use of the Snack Shack.
Our old tower foundation in a caged wire fence, is in the way of their construction plans- hence their willingness to offer us a new foundation, while they remove the old one. Kudos to our President Terry KA5TBB for effectively negotiating with Center Ops for a new foundation.
On Tuesday, John AB5SS accompanied the Center Ops personnel to remove multiple lengths of our expensive coax which was pre-installed underground from the shack’s cable panel to the foundation.
From John:
I went down to the shack this morning (Oct 1) to support Center Ops & PAE’s activity to pull all the cable out of the conduit going to the 50′ tower pad (or what’s left of the pad). We were able to pull all the cable out and on initial inspection, it all came out without any damage to the cable. Even the big 1 5/8″ Heliax! Now, getting the Heliax out of the cable tray was a LOT of fun :). Anyway, it appears we can reuse it all for the 60′ tower install.
Later that day, John AB5SS and Terry KA5TBB wrestled the dirty extracted cables into large coils for temporary storage.
Here’s also a picture of the patio extension ground dig. The overall effort will finally get us a new tower foundation at an alternate location, so we can install our 60′ Self Standing Tower which has been laying on it’s side outside of the shack for years.
Yes, this means we’ll have 2 towers : the existing 80′ and a new 60′.
Ken K5RG, our Professional Engineer (PE) extraordinaire, has been conversing at very detailed levels among the PAE structural engineer and Rohn engineers to assure the installation integrity is compliant with our existing Rohn tower specs.
73 Dave W5OC