Paul,
Good evening. Attached is a photo of the new beam antenna balanced on the ladder. All it took was a ladder, a step stool, a can of bug spray and a 9/16” wench! This thing is huge, but only 40 pounds!
Testing now; So far, so good. Made a contact with a guy in Vermont and the antenna is (W) facing Europe.
Below is a link to an antenna primer listing the CL-33. It has illustrations of the strength patterns of a Typical dipole at various distances(wavelengths) off the ground. The ladder is about 8’, about 1/8 wavelength. So it’s radiating mostly upwards. The ladder may still interfere some; it’s insulated from the center beam with a piece of wood.
(Gotta get the tower up some time soon.)
http://www.halifax-arc.org/pdf/Antennas-Basic-2017.pdf
Need to conquer the ‘rotate the ladder’ problem. The XYL has declined that job....
:-(
Best!