In a private email, Vic tells me about the difficulty working with the very
heavy and long mast. I get that, it would be a chore for anyone.
In a previous installation I had a 25ft long mast installed in a 120ft tall
45G tower. This mast was made of three different diameter steel tubes; the
top piece being 2" diameter. It was so heavy that there was no practical
way for a single person to handle it. Being a typical cheap ham there would
be no crane hired for the job either.
The solution to this dilema was constructing a climbable gin pole made of
two 25G tower sections. A pair of 2" X 2" angles bolted back to back and
spaced about three feet apart made up the means to connect the 25G face to
face with the main tower. Double U bolts were used to fasten the angles to the
tower and gin pole legs. A regular gin pole was used to hoist the 25G
sections up one at a time and connected together with normal 25G leg bolts.
Once in place, it was a breeze to install the long mast and climb the gin
pole to install stacks of VHF and UHF antennas up and down the 20+ feet of
the mast extending above the top of the tower.
It took a couple of extra hours to rig and unrig the 25G sections but the
job was so much easier and safer that in the long run it was all worthwhile.
I have since used the 25G rig to stack 20ft long 65G sections with relative
ease. It was also used to install some very heavy homebrew 75 and 40m
beams on 199 ft 65G and 55G towers. Thank goodness for the John Deere tractor
that did the heavy lifting using a 5/8" rope and couple of snatch blocks.
I found that only a single man as a ground crew and myself up the tower was
enough for any job we took on.
73,
Gerald K5GW
In a message dated 7/26/2014 6:14:50 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
dezrat@outlook.com writes:
ORIGINAL MESSAGE: (may be snipped)
On 7/26/2014 12:43 PM, Charlie Gallo wrote:
> Of course there is the other option - just leave it as is, is it
> really hurting anything?
REPLY:
Why not leave it as is and allow it to function as a lightning rod? Much
better for a bolt to hit the mast rather than your antenna.
73, Bill W6WRT
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