Mosley traps: another look.
I recently acquired a second Mosley triband, this one has the higher power traps and – more importantly – it is complete. The Mosley that I have been using for the past year has been shaken by wind and probably mostly birds, and the director is not parallel to the other elements, so it needs work. I also am often worried about the driven element when I occasionally want to run more than 50w on FT8 since I don’t know if this will heat up the trap enough to soften the PLA I printed the bobin with.
These traps are identical in construction, but everything is larger in diameter. As I had done before, I pulled all the screws, cleaned things, added some anti-galling paste and put them back together, adding some notes with a paint pen.
From top to bottom, these are reflector, director and driven.
I will take note of the element lengths and spacings, and figure out which model assembly guide they follow.
More to follow…
31/3/26:
My original Mosley was (I believe) a TA-33-JR-N. The rebuild was based on these instructions, though I was actively consulting an older manual since I believe it to be about 20 years old.
This “new” beam is a TA-33-M “Senior”, based on weight and boom/element lengths. I am a tiny bit worried as this is going to be near 75% of the wind load of the G-1000 rotator, when the manual recommends not exceeding 60%. The wind load or surface area is ~ 0.54 m², whereas my previous assembly had a 2m Ringo Ranger mounted above it which was around 0.43 m². I will try not to use the rotator at over 80mph wind, I guess.
Filed under: blog,Uncategorized - @ March 16, 2026 9:59 pm