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comments relating to rivetted connections, following an inspection of my own C3S a few days ago. I had noticed that the 20m reflector element seemed to be trying to rotate in high winds and needed to be lowered for a close inspection. As I suspected, there was a problem with the 20m reflector. On the attachment holding the element to the boom, several factory - installed rivets had loosened and one was quite badly chewed out . I decided to replace these connections with SS bolts and nyloc nuts. Along the 20m element. several rivets had broken, and in other places they were loose and had been working. I am going to replace these with larger rivets and am also thinking about rivetting them on both sides of the element as well. The 20m driven element has fared much better but one of the factory-installed rivets is loose and needs to be replaced as do one or two rivets further out along the element. I'm not blaming Force 12 for all this, as the antenna has now been up for nearly 5 years, and it gets a pretty hard life here in the rotor winds coming over a 3000 ft mountain half a mile away in an easterly. The wind strength and direction changes constantly and some of the gusts are very strong. It is quite likely that any beam antenna would have developed problems in this environment. However, my advice to any other C3 or C3S owner would be to keep a close eye on the behaviour of the antenna in high winds and to lower it for close inspection at regular intervals. I will be lowering mine once a year from now on. I also hope that the Force 12 people will be prompted to look into the design to improve the mechanical performance of the unit under these conditions. 73 de Morris ZL1ANF 12 Emerson Street, TE AROHA 2971 NEW ZEALAND -------------------------------------------- Force12Talk mailing list provided as a service by Force 12 Antennas, Inc. Force 12 Web site: http://www.qth.com/force12 Submissions: send to Force12Talk@qth.com To unsubscribe: send a blank e-mail to Force12Talk-leave@qth.com Force12Talk Message Archive: http://www.qth.com/force12/list/force12talk For problems with the list, contact n4zr@qth.com |
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