Doublet Maintenance at the Ranch
Doublet Maintenance at the Ranch Filed in Antennas on Feb.07, 2011 John, his son Dan and I met up at the Ranch in late December as they were passing through on the way to California. When we arrived on Friday afternoon, it was apparent that the 135′ doublet antenna had broken away from the mast on the west end. We had used some Blue and White rope from the insulator at the end of the antenna to the mast. That rope lasted about 1-1/2 years in the elements of Northern Arizona. We decided to fix it on Saturday. First, we lowered the mast on the east end by pulling the pin at the bottom, and tilting it over. While it was down, we used some clothes line that I had left over from another project to reconnect the antenna to the mast. We also cut the guy ropes in the middle, where they had been sliding back & forth through an eyelet at the top of the mast. To prevent fraying, we tied each guy rope separately to the mast eyelet. West Mast tilted over Next, we lo