Bruce Array Antennas & Warehouse Floors

The crank-up tower problem on Washington Island had taken down the Bruce Array I had built for W9EVT. 

In building the first one we’d learned a lot and in the field tuning more nuances of the Bruce Array were discovered.

Field tuning was much more sensitive than expected.

So plans are being made to build another Bruce Array for W9EVT on WI-001L.

The warehouse where we built last time is filled with winter storage at the moment, though with the experience of the first build proving out the roll-up build system we trialed I think we could do the build in a much smaller area.

The field-assembly system we designed also worked excellent.  The transformation from a spool of wire & antenna ropes to a ready to lift Bruce Array couldn’t have gone any better.

Reality is that until the snow clears on the Island and the ground firms enough for the Terex Lift the Bruce Array wouldn’t go up – so perhaps waiting for the storage to clear and building then would work out.

Thinking more than one will be built – the main new one for W9EVT and a spare for him to store (will leave the balun out of the spare for the time being).

It would not be very hard to make this a short run of Bruce Arrays. 

If any of you reading might be interested in a 40m Bruce Array for your QTH this spring, please drop me a note.  We could discuss if the design we’re building would work for you and put some costs together based on whether you’d be helping with the build & the final spec.

73

Steve
K9ZW

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