John,
Having erected many Universal aluminum towers over the years, let me
try to answer your questions.
1. Climbing the tower is not a problem, just don't do it in a heavy
wind as the added windload may overload the tower.
2. The easiest and best way to erect the tower is as you have said:
mount the rotor, mast, antennas, etc .. and then pull/push it up.
Pulling works best IF you have a clear path for a vehicle, but I
erected my first 60' tower with monobanders by having the neighborhood
guys help me push and pull it up simultaneously.
It's not necessary to lay the tower back down to do antenna work IF
you can climb safely and use proper methodology for doing so.
When calculating your antenna windload, remember to include the mast, etc.
I am about to erect 6 more of these towers!
Have fun!
Don
N8DE
Quoting John Kemker <john@kemker.org>:
> I'm reconsidering my plans for putting up a tower in my back yard.
> Instead of putting up 5 sections of Rohn 25G and guying them with
> Phillystran, I'm considering putting up a Universal Tower HD21-50
> instead. One of the main reasons is the guys. We have a detached
> garage in the back yard and the only way I can see to place the guys
> comes very close to blocking the garage door or the path leading up to it.
>
> So, I have questions:
> From what I gather from reading the reflector, climbing these aluminum
> towers is not recommended by the manufacturer. I also notice that the
> recommended method of raising the tower is to build it on the ground,
> then tilt it up. Can it also be tilted back down if work needs to be
> done on the antenna or rotor?
>
> What about grounding? Will the Polyphaser tower leg ground clamps
> (stainless airplane clamps with a stainless "pad") be sufficient to keep
> the aluminum/copper joint from experiencing corrosion? Still perform
> the standard ground strap & (at least) two ground rods per leg
> procedure? Ground to the tower or to the base?
>
> All I'm planning on putting up on the tower is a Mosley CL-33 and a
> W5WVO-modified Cushcraft A5-50 on top of a 15 ft. 2" dia. mast, turned
> by a Yaesu G1000SDX. Single run of LD5-50F out to tower with a coax
> switch up near the top to switch between the two beams. I *might* top
> it off with a 10m vertical, but then again, might just put that
> somewhere else, like on the house.
>
> --
> --JohnK
> 73 de W5NNH
> 10X 75371/M&M 117/SMIRK 6185/Six Club 285/TRA 2499/Norcross 228 F&AM
>
>
>
>
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