Voltage Reduction

Using a resistor is a crap shoot, as it depends on the load how much the voltage drop is. For you use, it sounds like a grid or panel of opposed diodes in series with one leg of the pylon will give you better results - in .7 volt increments. You just keep adding diodes until you get the performance you want. Here is a good description of the basic circuit with the use of full wave bridge rectifiers compared to discrete diode pairs - they do the same thing:

stan2004 posted:

... Each bridge has 4 terminals that are always clearly labeled AC, AC, +, and -.  ... I dug up this photo from a previous OGR thread showing one bridge.  The 2 AC terminals are interchangeable....

The "output" of one bridge feeds the input to the next bridge.  Lather, rinse, repeat for additional bridges to achieve as much drop as you want with taps all along the way.