There were two work days organized by Dennis W1UE at the Milara warehouse in Milford, MA.  The first was March 18 and the second on March 25.

March 18

The following ops showed up to work: W1KM, K1VV, K1WCC, W1CC, K1IX, K6ND, KV1J, W1MA, K1EBY, N1QY, W1WEF, WW1M, AA1V, N4ADC, W1KM, and K1DG.  That’s 16 in all, a nice turnout!  The crew worked hard; we didn’t finish getting all the sections back into the storage area until 4:30pm.  It was a long day, but the job was completed.

Work accomplished:

1. The last 4 top tower sections had the rotors, mast, accessory shelf, etc. installed and verified that it all turned.

2. All 141 new tower sections had their bolt holes cleaned out with a drill.  The legs, both inside and outside, had excess metal removed, and a quick test fit was done to make sure that legs would properly mate.

3. The new tower sections were arranged outside of the storage area, so we were able to get a good count on the tower sections as we put them back into the storage area.

4. All new generators were stenciled with “WRTC” and numbered.

5. Sets of tower bolts were constructed (until we ran out of nuts).

6. Ground wires were cut into 5 and 10 ft lengths; we now have 36 of each length awaiting the rest of the Grounding Kit Parts.

7. About half of the new beams were inspected for completeness; hardware was replaced as we found it missing.

8. All old and new tribander booms were checked for missing hardware.

9. Winch assemblies were completed until we ran out of bolts.

10. Red tape was added to all 80m dipoles.

March 25

Ops present: K1EBY, K1IX, KV1J, K6ND, W1WEF, N4ADC, W1UE, and K1DG.

Work accomplished:

1. All old station kits were opened specifically to review the ground kits and the tower bolt kits.  All tower bolt kits were made whole, with bad bolts replaced with good.  Ground kits were also reviewed for completeness, and were also made whole in all but one case where the tower clips were missing.

2. Tower bolt kits for the additional stations were all completed.

3. Winches were attached to the brackets; Doug has an update on the brackets that I unfortunately didn’t write down.

4. The rest of the antennas were opened and the contents reviewed.  We are missing the orange elements (15m) on 2 beams.  Jack W1WEF has more info on this.

5. All of the  necessary rope cutting was done; we cut almost 13000 ft of rope into the appropriate 210 needed lengths.  Rope was then coiled.

6. The heat shrink colored coding was completed on the red, yellow, and about half of the yellow-yellow ropes (138 lengths).  We still have the other half of the yellow-yellow ropes and all the green ropes (82 lengths).

7. Slings for the dipoles were made.

Lunch was pizza and cokes, and went down well.  We finished a little after 3pm.

 

Photos from the March 18 work day (all by W1UE).