Yaesu GS-65 Thrust Bearing

As spring advances, it's time to undertake the Annual Inspection at our radio stations.

What damage did winter wreak this time around?

Thankfully, not much. I lost both elements of a 12m vertical beam when a front that wasn't well forecast rushed by.  But they were replaced within 48 hours, being simply 7m fishing poles with wire attached.

This is what you get for about £55 (postage included).  Nicely made, fair play.

The rotator cage needed a bit of upgrading in light of the steady increase in wind strength that seems to be a feature now of a chaging climate in the UK.

I opted for the Yaesu GS-65, being modestly priced and seemingly well up to the job of steadying a typical beam down to 14MHz.

The GS-65 is simple, of course, but perfectly nicely made and very easy to install - except that, very stupidly, no drilling template is provided!   This is really annoying, because it would add almost nothing to the cost of the product, and it is a required part of the installation.

The (used) crayon template (you can print this out for your own use, provided you scale the image so that the hole centres are 60mm apart), made necessary by Yaesu's failure to provide one with the unit.  The 2" centre is cut out so as to make alignment with my cage stub mast collar easier.  Tracing paper is better than white!

 
In the absence of any life-size template online, you're left with no option but to turn the unit upside down, place a piece of paper (I advise you use tracing or greaseproof rather than white paper as I did) over its bottom and rub a template with a wide crayon.


So, out I went in spring weather that had by now, inevitably, turned to cold and foggy conditions, to see if  my rapidly wetting piece of paper would be accurate enough.

Well, luckily, it was. With only a very minor rotary-tool milling of one hole to make up for a slight error in my drilling, all four bolts slipped easily into their respective threads on the bearing.  The stub mast even turns all the way round, with even clearance.

I can't see that a thrust bearing for such a simple task can be anything other than perfect, and so it seems is the case for the Yaesu - despite their omission of a template!