An Interview with N5TW

de N5XU

[Editors Note: Tom Whiteside N5TW is a Texas-Ex, and an alumnus member of UTARC. He has been a ham radio operator since 1996. Tom is also an officer of the Central Texas DX and Contest Club (CTDXCC.)]

N5XU: Tom, you are in the process of expanding your home HF station considerably. What are your goals for the project?

N5TW: The goal for the station was to improve our capabilities for DXing and contesting considerably. We wanted to be able to do two transmitter contesting from here, and this really dictates getting transmit antennas spread out physically to minimize interaction. This led to expanding from one tower with tribanders, a 40M beam, and an 80M array, to a total of four towers populated by stacks of monobanders - all independently rotatable.

N5XU: What advantages are there to stacking monoband yagis?

N5TW: Beam stacking is done for higher gain, being able to squirt RF in different directions at once, to reduce QSB, to improve the range of arrival angles with good gain, and to remove arrival angle nulls caused by terrain effects.

N5XU: Can you describe what each of these towers will look like?

N5TW: The current tower (100 feet tall) will become the 10M tower, and will have three stacked 10M yagis, as well as continuing to host the 80M phased wire array. A new 110 foot tall tower, located about 220 feet to the northwest from the 10M tower, has three M² six-element 44.5 foot boom monoband yagis. The 20M tower is 130 feet tall and has three large M² five-element yagis. The 40M tower is also 130 feet tall and has two Cushcraft XM240 yagis.

Working with a 15M yagi on the ground.

Attaching the 15M yagi to a side-mount rotor.

N5XU: How has the installation of that hardware been going?

N5TW: Our home is located on seven acres of fairly wooded land just west of Georgetown, TX, and this has been quite the project to clear space for the towers and guy wire, as well as digging holes/concrete work (both done via a backhoe.)

N5XU: Is there any chance that UTARC members can visit or operate at the new station?

N5TW: We really enjoy DXing and team contesting (at which I'm still a relative rookie.) I hope some of the UT crew can join us here next year for the ARRL DX contests (and others!) I'm tentatively planning an open house for the new station on Saturday, November 13, weather permitting.

[Tom Whiteside N5TW can be contacted by email at n5tw@igg-tx.net.]