PJ2T Outside Maintenance Plan
Updated 22 December 2017

Non-Routine Maintenance

Routine Maintenance

Outside maintenance encompasses ongoing care of all of the station components that are outside of the house, including towers, antennas, feedlines, rotors, radials, cabling, switchboxes, and transformers. Ongoing care includes rust and corrosion control, periodic inspections, and replacement of broken components. (Upgrades, such as addition of antennas, are NOT considered maintenance.)

Tower Scraping and Painting Schedule and Record of Work

Legend: "CG" = W0CG, "CCC" = Club members in general. Tower sections are numbered from the top down. Green shows the date each section was actually done. 

Note 1: Only emergency triage scraping and painting will be done on the Europe tower prior to its replacement for safety reasons.

Routine Tower Non-Painting Maintenance

November 2017: Dug two inches down in ground at all guy anchor points; no corrosion noted.
March 2017: Cut tree branches away from Europe Stone guy set.
Ongoing: Inspect all guys, equalizer plates, exposed metal for corrosion and control it.
Periodic: Remove tape from deadends on tower and inspect for corrosion; re-seal.
Periodic: Cut stick tree away from overhead cable bundle.
Ongoing: Keep Beverages clear of vegetation and test termination resistors.
Ongoing: Spray paint Heliax on Ridge with camouflage paint.

Legacy Maintenance Plan

Concepts and Assumptions

• Europe and US/JA towers require recoating roughly every six months.
• The PJ9JT tower is aluminum and requires so little care that it is not in this plan.
• Member painting is scheduled to coincide with contests so that no extra trips are required.
• CCC members (not W0CG or WB9Z) who happen to be on site at the right times will maintain the bottom two sections of both towers.
• CCC climbers W0CG and WB9Z will do modest mid-height painting, no more than two to three sections per trip to Curacao.
• The contractor will be used to do the high, most difficult work and to paint in the season when no hams are around.
• This schedule minimizes use of the expensive contractor. We can't afford to have him do everything.
• Costs for paint, sandpaper, brushes, gloves, spray coating, tape, duct seal have all been adequately covered from normal Station Support money and that can continue.
• The calculations that follow are bare bones, just enough to keep us in operation. If we could raise more, that would be desirable but not necessary.

Cost Calculations

• Europe sections 10, 9, 8, 7 and US/JA sections 8, 7, 6, 5 each require 1.5 hours to scrape, 1.5 hours to paint.
• Europe sections 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and US/JA sections 4, 3, 2, 1 each require 1.0 hours to scrape, 1.0 hours to paint.
• Contractor total annual hours = (4*3) + (4*2) + (4*3) + (1*1) = 33 hours
• At contractor rate of NAfl 100/hour for Herko ($58/hour), annual cost is (33*58) = $1914.

One Time 2006 Cost

We need assistance from Herko and his helper to get the big antennas down and back up with minimal disruption to contesting. Four full Saturdays will be needed.

• Per day 8 hours climber @ $58 + 8 hours ground helper @ $20 = $624.
• Four Saturdays = $2496. 

Possible Funding Sources

• Seed the outside maintenance fund initially via a fund drive. There may be members who would like to make specific cash donations to the OM fund.
• Add an additional annual dues assessment specifically for the OM fund.
• Add an additional component to the "Rent" specific to the OM fund.
• A one-time drive to fund the four Saturdays would need to raise about $140/member.
• Combinations to raise our annual target of $1914 include (assumes 18 members and 8 annual rentals):
  • OM Annual Dues $50, OM Rent Charge $100 raises $1700
  • OM Annual Dues $25, OM Rent Charge $200 raises $2050
  • OM Annual Dues $75, OM Rent Charge $50 raises $1750
  • OM Annual Dues $0, OM Rent Charge $200 raises $1600
  • OM Annual Dues $100, OM Rent Charge $0 raises $1800
• I believe the most painless and most fair combination would be to make the users pay the most that most member visitors consider the rent amount to me almost trivial (especially for a group contest), thus that the second alternative would be best.
• The $600 initiation fee for any new members could be redirected into the OM fund.
• CCC Board would have the authority to transfer funds from SS into OM if necessary.

How to Decide

Should we present these alternatives to the members and let them vote on the most acceptable option?