Construction of antenna system for ground monitoring station

The construction of a mast for a ground station took place in two rounds. In the first round, we prepared the mast itself, its anchorage and especially the tilting mechanism. We opted for a tilting mast because we expect frequent replacement of antennas. It is a mast for a radio club, which expects a larger number of antennas and in particular their frequent replacement. Our current premises doe not allow the construction of multiple masts for multiple antenna systems. This setup is also more convenient when service is required.

We first assembled the entire tilting mechanism together with the anchorage in the workshop and only after its completion, it was disassembled and transported to theplace of assembly. The construction took place on 4 August 2017 on a beautiful sunny day. In pleasant temperatures well exceeding 30 ° C, we managed to assemble and anchor the entire mast. The work started at six in the morning and we left the ‘workplace’ just before noon. Assistant professor Zahradníček, our colleague at the time, actively helped us with the design and production of the tilting mechanism. We would like to thank him again for his work.

In the second round we installed the antennas on the mast. After two months of ‘trial operation’ of the mast when it “survived” the winds in Košice, we moved on to the antennas. They were installed on 20 October 2017 and we would like to thank Stanislav Uličiansky (OM8ST), who provided his help with the installation. We mounted a rotator on the mast, a spar pole and a pair of antennas for the 2 m and 70 cm bands. We then attached an LNA to the 70 cm antenna and checked the tuning of both the antennas. After the mast was raised again, we connected a PC, SDR radios and all the necessary hardware for remote operation of the station. You can see photos from both constructions in the gallery.