Photographs of Knight Bailey, W8PNS's tubular tower and Sommer antenna. Shown up at about 25 ft. at the end of the outer tube. The elements are for 40 (for night CW), 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10 meter bands. There are two winches, one for the outer tube and one for the two inner tubes.

    The tower crew were mostly mechanics with their tool boxes & wrenches. It was a beautiful day and fortunately nobody fell into the canal. My function was to help with the tape measuring of the elements. My job description was "Official Technical Observer", hi. The Sommer Antennas group is located in Geneva, Florida, which is not too far from Orlando and Sanford Florida. I believe that Sommer antennas were originally manufactured in Germany, but has in recent years moved to Florida. The construction of the beam is really solid... I think it will do Knight a very good job for a long time to come.

    Knight lives near me, just up the road in Port Richey, Florida and as you can see in the photographs, has a canal in his back yard. I don't know if that will help propogation or not but he certainly has an outstanding antenna system with the new Sommer antenna and tower.

    I think Knight is leaning toward the ICOM-756PRO transceiver but as to my knowlege he has not made a final decision. For those who want to know more about the Sommer series of antennas, I have included a clicker below to link you with their website.