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This site updated Tuesday, September 18, 2007 NEW ***  Final DREAM TOWER Costs & Summary ***NEW

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Hi! I'm Bill Hider, N3RR. I live in Rockville, Maryland with my wife, Barbara, and our two children, Brian (23) and Brittney (20), and our three cats, Tiger, Tori and Misty.

My goal for this site is to provide information to the Amateur Radio community that hams will be able to incorporate into their own station installations. My primary interest in Amateur Radio is contesting. This site will concentrate on the setup, installation and engineering of a contest-oriented Amateur Radio station.

But first, take a look at my Ham Radio history.

Send me an email message:		<=== Click on the photo!

Here's   a    CQ Magazine cover photo of me after just coming down from the 134 footer:

For more info about the photo, click here: N3RR

And here's a view of the QTH from 1300 ft!

Here's another perspective from 1300 ft:

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Here's a sequence from the ground:

[Click on the thumbnails below to see a larger photo]


======= Zoom in this way =======>

The HiGain HG-52SS (52 foot crankup) now has:

5 ELE 10M @ 52 ft and 5 ELE 15M @ 65ft

Ever have birds land on your tower/antennas/guy wires? Here's a photo taken 10 minutes before ARRL SS CW 1997:
	Birds all over (600 x 425 8KBytes)

40/20M rings (600 x 913 32 KBytes) (1200 x 1826 88 KBytes)

HD AB-105 installation (600 x 497 23 KBytes) (1515 x 1255 81 KBytes)

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SYSTEM DESIGN:

Throughout my career, I have taken a systems engineering approach to technical challenges. My amateur station is no different. As I looked at my goals for my new "outdoor interface" to the rest of the world, I determined that I needed to look at all aspects of the situation if I were to obtain the most "bang for the buck" given the limited resources available to me. That meant reducing the situation from: "I need/want a new antenna/tower system." to a statement of goals and objectives. I then reduced that statement to a requirements analysis for each of the subsystems associated with the "new antenna system". That produced the following list of subsystems that needed to be addressed before I was able to proceed with the design, procurement and installation of any of them:

Requirements Analysis Tower Subsystem Building Permit Transmit Antenna Subsystem Receive Antenna Subsystem - Beverages and EWEs Antenna Installation/De-installation Subsystem Purchase Videotape of Antenna Installations via Steel Tram Cable Guying Subsystem Cabling Subsystem Connector Subsystem Connector Waterproofing Subsystem Conduit Subsystem Lightning Protection Subsystem Foundation Subsystem Guy Anchor Subsystem Rotator Subsystem Tools and Test Equipment Subsystem Tower Climbing/Fall Prevention Subsystem Tower/Guy Anchor Rust Delay/Repair Subsystem Vendors/Suppliers Final Costs!

As you can see, there is much to consider when you are contemplating a new tower/antenna system installation. The detailed sections will show the approaches I took, the design details I generated, anecdotes, costs, and results. The whole process began in the Spring of 1991 and was completed on September 30, 1997. I will incrementally add to this text (and provide photos/graphics along the way), so that, when finished, this website may become a reference site for hams when they contemplate any part or all of what I experienced over a six year period. More soon...

Very 73! de Bill, N3RR

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