Jeff:
You can build ANYTHING ANYWHERE with enough money. As Steve 'LXC
suggested, you can hire a pumper truck or you can rent a motorized
wheelbarrow (a.k.a. Georgia buggie) to place the concrete. If you use a
pumper, remember that he'll have to wash his equipment (including the long
pipe) on your property, which means lots of wet concrete somewhere on the
ground.
I faced a similar situation last summer in building my 64-foot Trylon.
I decided to rent the buggie, but as it turned out, the driver of the
concrete truck was able to maneuver his rig right up against the hole, in
between a couple of mature trees in my back yard, and I didn't need the
buggie. ($200 down the drain, although my 15 year-old daughter had a blast
driving it all over the yard, it's that easy to use!) But be careful if you
choose the buggie - you'll need fairly smooth terrain to drive on,
otherwise, the jostling could upset the rig. (IMHO.) It'll also take you a
loooooong time, so check on how long the truck driver can stay on the job
site before he has to charge for excess time. FYI - it took over an hour to
place ten and a half yards of concrete, from two trucks, in my tower's
foundation. And that's with the trucks right against the hole! The buggies
can place at most a half a yard or so at a time.
Also, I decided to stick-build the tower by myself, mainly due to the
expense of renting a crane (would have cost me $400 around these parts
(D.C.), but that money instead went to buy coax, arrestors, grounding wire,
etc.) I also think a crane would have had a hard time positioning itself to
lift the tower over the garage and a few trees to reach the foundation.
The trick to building this thing, besides getting the bottom section
true (not crooked) and plumb, is to get the pieces organized on the ground
and haul them up a few at a time. If you find a helper to do the ground
work, it ought to take you a couple of hours per section or less; if you
have a second climber AND a groundsman, you three certainly ought to be able
to construct your 96-footer in a couple of easy days.
Contact me off-reflector if you want more details. Good luck and let
us know which way you decide to go.
73 de
Gene Smar AD3F
P.S. Check out N3RR's web page (www.erols.com/n3rr I think) for additional
info on grounding, coax selection, etc. etc. Bill and his web pages helped
me a lot.
-----Original Message-----
From: sparks@apk.net <sparks@apk.net>
To: towertalk@contesting.com <towertalk@contesting.com>
To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Date: Monday, March 25, 2002 10:02 AM
Subject: [Towertalk] (no subject)
>Greetings,
>
>I'm considering a 96 ft self-supporting Trylon tower. To maintain a
>semi-peaceful relationship with my neighbors, I'm considering locating it
in my
>woods. I have a small clearing in a good spot, and I'm willing to cut a
few
>more trees down if I need to. Trees are 50-70ft, and all of my RF would be
VHF
>and above to 10GHz.
>
>I've considered some of the annoyances of this such as difficulty of
getting
>concrete back there for the base, the need to erect w/o a crane, feedline
>losses, etc, and I think I can overcome/tolerate them.
>
>Has anyone ever put a tower in the woods? Love it? Regret it? What am I
not
>thinking about?
>
>Jeff - WB2RUZ
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