Hanging anchor points on guy wires

Dacron rope is taped to the pull rope to hold the weight of the pulley until it is in place. The Pursik knot is left loose and also taped.

Ready to go up

After reading much about wire antennas over the past couple of years and asking around the bands about favorite antennas, I have decided to build a loop. At my QTH there are 6 towers ranging in height from 50 to 500 feet. They are laid out in such a way that a wire run from one to the next or in some areas, attaching to guy cables, will give me something close to a circle. The distance around the perimeter will be something in excess of 1000 feet so it should be usable on several bands. I have spent most of my life building and servicing towers so the climbing part is not an issue. On the other hand, attaching support points to the guy wires did present a challenge. One option is to hang a pulley on the guy cable in question, attach a bosuns chair and be pulled up the guy wire to attach the pulley. We have done this on occasion when we needed to install aviation wire markers on guy cables where it was undesirable to disconnect the guy and let it into the tower. Necessity being the mother of invention, so I’ve been told, I did a little experimenting with a short piece of dacron rope and came up with a solution that may be useful to others that find themselves in a similar predicament. I wanted the pulleys about 50 feet above the ground and about 5 feet below the cable to keep the antenna wire away from the guy cable. I will be using THHN #12 stranded copper wire that will pass through an insulator that will in turn be attached to the dacron rope running through the pulley so the insulator and #12 can be raised or lowered as needed. I hope the photos will help you to understand how the process works. The basic principal is loosely tying a 4 coil pursik knot around the guy wire at ground level then attaching the two ends of the rope to the pulley. The permanent lifting rope – also dacron - is passed through the pulley leaving enough slack so both ends will reach the ground from working height – in my case 50 feet. The “Slider” is attached to the guy wire just below the pursik knot and the pull rope is attached to the slider. I walked back about 120 feet towards the tower and pulled the assembly up. Once the assembly was at the height I wanted, I gave a good pull on the Dacron rope and the prusik knot tighten down on the guy wire. I then went back to the guy point and pulled on the rope and the slider came back down to ground level and was remove it. The “Slider” is a prototype and may change somewhat in the final unit; however, I don’t think it is an absolute necessity for this project. Most anything that will slide easily on the guy wire and not hang-up could be used to push the knot up the cable. What makes this work is the angle of the pull rope in relation to the guy wire. That angle must be greater than 90 degrees before the “Slider” will move up the cable.

The plastic piece on the front of the slider has a V-notch that fits around the cable to push the knot

pursik knot

The spool of 1/8” Dacron

Pulley

Pulley in final position about 130 feet up the cable, 50 feet above the ground.

You can just see the slider about 55 feet up at the end of the pull rope.