Pouring concrete part 2

SM2XJP went down with the tower section me and SM2UVU fixed to get it galvanized. A company Gallac in Skellefteå who has got a big factory said no to the job. So I called a company called Galvpart in Vännäs who are a lot smaller but they accepted the job for a very fair price. The problem is that they need to remove all zink from the old section before they can put it into one of the bath needed before the actual galvanization. However Gallac said they did not have a big enough room for the 6m section since their bath is only 5m long. However Galvpart have an even smaller bath which is 2m long but they managed to fix it anyway 🙂 By Thursday they had it done so SM2XJP went the 250km roundtrip today and picked up the parts.

SM2LIY helped me previously this week to pour the concrete for the pillar. It contains about 600l of concrete so it was very nice having Per getting water when we ran out of it and also “stomping” the concrete to get rid of air. He did an excellent job so the foundation turned out great.

We got to borrow the L70 from GTL (local company) which SM2XJP drove and fixed the ground around the foundation. He also did change the angles a bit around the military towers foundation since water was gathering around the foundation instead of pouring away. We also got rid of all old insulation material from the house which was great and the tower sections were moved into place so we don’t need to carry them so far.

Pouring concrete

SM2LIY joined me at the station and helped out with some work. He also ran the EU HFC but unfortunately 10 and 15m was very poor up here so he had no chance against the rest of Europe. Better luck next year hopefully.

Otherwise I poured the concrete for the “base plate” for the 60m tower. It was very warm, around 28C so it was a real pain but luckily everything went smoothly and keeping the concrete a bit cooler down in the bottom of the hole was not a problem. SM2LIY helped me to build the form for the pillar and also a ramp so we could tip the concrete down into the pillar. SM2XJP came and helped to put the form together down in the pit and we were ready to mix concrete.

Working on the 60m tower foundation

Today I got a lot done on the foundation work for the 60m tower. I finished up the boom struts for the 15m yagis and the 17m yagi. I made a form for the bottom plate measuring 1.2×1.2m and the rebar cage as well. The gravel in the bottom of the pit was evened out and is about 20-30cm thick. Tomorrow I will hopefully get enough done so that I am able to pour the concrete either tomorrow evening or on Saturday, we will see…

Vacation update

I have been sloppy with the updates during the vacation. I have been keeping myself pretty busy and with the intense weather we’ve had this summer (around 30C most of the time) the tempo has been slow even though I’ve been trying and think we’ve gotten a lot done. We are not used to these kind of temperatures but it’s funny how the body slowly adapts to it. One evening I was feeling cold and put my t-shirt on and when I checked the temperature it was +25C 🙂

A new ham, SA2CHQ came by to visit and said he was able to powder coat at work. So he got to powder coat the guy wire rings and the result was great! It’s fun with some new blood and he lives rather close. We also have another ham, SA2CLC who is a skilled young guy and lives not even 5km from here. He came by yesterday and helped to move some gravel with his old tractor, so now I can soon pour the concrete.

SM2UVU also came up and stayed a couple of days, and we fixed the broken tower section together and he had also modified some washers used for the guy wire rings. Now those sections are also ready. The only thing needed now is to get the fixed tower section galvanized and at the same time I will hand in the boom struts.

It was also very fun that Femma and Aloys (PA3DWK, PA3DAT) stopped by for the third time. They love to travel through Scandinavia and last time they were here was three years ago, and quite a bit has happened since then. They are truly great people and interesting people so it is always a lot of fun. Aloys was hoping to help me out quite a bit but because of not having all material we were a bit limited in what we could do. So we cleaned up a bit, moved some guy wire lines down to the barn etc. But it was so warm anyway that it was hard to work.