Bill: I have used 2 different US Towers as verticals over the years with
NO indication of poor or intermittent contact. The combination of
sliding metal contact between the sections plus the steel lift cables
between sections seems to make reliable contact.
The arms are kind of useful for attaching the gamma match wire for
loading. I have a 131 ft UST here. On 160 I attache a 4 ft piece of
aluminum square tubing to the coax arm at the mid point on the tower
with 2 hose clamps and drop a nr 10 wire to ground level. A single gamma
capacitor brought the swr to a low level and it works great. I have only
4 radials but plan more. Now I need some low noise directive receiving
antennas to finish the job.
My TX472 tower does not have coax arms nor a motor driven winch to
raise and lower it. I hang the coaxes from a small angle across the
tower legs at the top. They have a bit of slack in them. I have a small
rope tied to them at about the 35 ft level. I walk the rope around the
tower so that it pulls the coaxes in a spiral around the tower. The rope
is tied off at the bottom and this keeps them from flapping around in
the wind. Has worked fine for me for the 15 years I have had the tower.
73, Dan, N5AR
Bill Ogden wrote:
>
> I am still working on my plan to replace a 40' fixed aluminum tower with a
> TX-455 crankup.
> Two questions I would appreciate help with today:
>
> 1. U.S.Towers indicated that the contact between the sections is probably
> not good enough
> to use the tower as a vertical (or as part of a half-sloper). How do
> people overcome this?
>
> 2. They recommend the coax stand-off arms for getting cables to the top. I
> do not see these
> stand-off arms in most photos of crankups. Does everyone use them? What
> are other ways
> of getting various cables to the top such that there is not a problem when
> cranking down the
> tower?
>
> Regards,
>
> Bill
> W2WO
>
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