I keep hearing this "ground level" phrase tossed around, and I'd like to
hear from crankup owners exactly what brand and model towers they are able
to work on at "ground level" *with antennas installed*, assuming the tower
is installed in the clear and not next to a roof. Unless you don't have
anything but a mast on top of it, all the sufficiently tall (70'+)
crankup/tiltovers I looked at cannot be tilted to the point you don't need a
long stepladder to work around the mast, rotator, or baluns/coax. At best,
you can get the actual mast tilted over to maybe 20'-24' or so before
something hits the ground. So as far as I can see a TALL stepladder is still
needed, which is far more dangerous to climb than a tower, especially if you
have to handle anything heavy or long, which you eventually will. If you've
ever had to climb a 16' or 20' wobbly, spindly stepladder carrying a load,
you know what I mean.
Also, I'd be interested to hear how to safely change out a rotator or check
for binding on a thrust bearing on a fully loaded mast when the whole thing
is horizontal, with a zillion pounds of side pressure on the bottom end of
the mast. Knottly problems like this likely lead people to take a chance and
climb a "nested" but not tilted tower, "just this once". So they've ended up
climbing anyway, and climbing a tower that isn't designed for climbing to
boot. I've seen a few fixed towers I thought were too dangerous to climb,
because of deterioration or half-baked installation. I've never seen a
crankup I thought was safe to climb.
In the end, I went with Murpy's #1 Law of Mechanics: "The Number Of Things
That Can Go Wrong = Number of Moving Parts Squared". So I put up 80' of
strongly guyed Rohn 45. Using K7LXC's double safety lanyard climbing method,
I'm totally comfortable up there now, other than getting a bit tired if I
have to go up two or three times in a row, but that's only because I'm a lot
older than most of you young whippersnappers out there.
Thanks to all for all the good inputs and ideas, this is still the best
reflector on the market.
73 and Think First, Climb Second.
Jerry W5KP
>Why climb? That's what the
> point of my argument was --- the crankup tiltover can be lowered to ground
> level for any servicing. I replace any coax, any tower cabling, and
> adjustments, any routine maintainance from the safety of ground level. >
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