FWIW, I have purchased two used Heights aluminum towers over the years.
Neither is intended for the support of any stacked arrays of large
Yagis, etc., but that is not to say that they may not be capable of that
service when properly guyed.
The first was acquired from a relatively local ham whose QTH was about
150 miles from mine. It was a 69 foot tower and included a HB tilt
base. I paid $300 for it. Aside from the bargain price, I appreciated
its light weight and the fact that it breaks down into eight foot long
sections, which all are easily loaded and transported in the bed of a
conventional P/U truck without exceeding any load weight limits. This
tower is currently used as a bottom section of an 80/160M vertical.
After horizontal assembly and while supported by easily available saw
horses and/or step ladders, I called my friendly, local tow-truck
provider, and it was easily raised on the the tilt-base with a
pre-attached steel cable at about the tower's 40 foot level for the
towing cost of $75. The conductive cable is shorted to one of the tower
legs by wrapping it around the leg so it's conveniently available for
future use and to prevent it from affecting the radiator length.
The second tower is 56 feet long and was acquired by a pre-arranged pick
up at Dayton last year and using a similar pick-up truck. With the help
of the seller and because of rain, we easily transferred the entire
tower from his P/U truck to mine under the canopy of the Xenia Ramada.
Although I have fallen behind my original schedule for installation of
that tower, a tilt-base was fabricated by a local welder and has already
been installed in a concrete base. The purchase price was, IIRC, around
$700 or so for the tower and I hope to support a low-band RX array on
it, if all goes well.
The obvious attractiveness of such used towers is its easy, inexpensive
one-man loading and transportation with similar one-man assembly and
installation, e.g., by using the leverage obtained by the 69 foot torque
arm at the end of the tower, one person was able to easily raise the
horizontal assembled tower on its tilt-base and support it on saw
horses. The cost of the towers on the used market seems far below what
Heights typically charges for new. YMMV, but I wouldn't hesitate to go
with Heights or Universal aluminum towers for my modest applications in
the future.
73, Joe
K2XX
Richard (Rick) Karlquist <mailto:richard@karlquist.com>
Monday, February 11, 2019 12:25 PM
FWIW, I have an 11 inch aluminum tower of unknown manufacture
that has been holding up a 2 element SteppIR at 40 feet for
many years. It is guyed at the top with so-called "truck
rope". Erection is via a 30 ft falling derrick made of the
same 10 ft tower sections. It just barely accommodates
an HD73 rotator in one particular location within the
section, inserted in the section before assembling the
sections into a tower.
Rick N6RK
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john@kk9a.com <mailto:john@kk9a.com>
Sunday, February 10, 2019 3:13 PM
I have owned a few Universal towers. I had one at my Aruba home along
with a
Rohn 55g tower, guess which one did not require frequent painting for
corrosion maintenance? N9IWW is apparently looking for an aluminum
Rohn 25.
A 12" Universal tower is not very strong. The Universal Tower joints are a
poor design, in my opinion. They upside down so water and dirt collect
inside them and the supplied cheap zinc plated hardware will quickly
disintegrate.
John KK9A
n8de wrote:
I have had great success with Universal towers ... the sections are
10' in length (most Heights tower sections are 8'), and, using the
proper taper schedule, a 60 to 80 foot tower with great wind load
ability is not difficult.
Presently, I have 3 up ... a fourth goes up this year .. and plans
include three more.
Don't think cheap ... they aren't .. but, are all SELF-SUPPORTING, and
no guy-wires are needed. ... nor recommended.
73
Don
N8DE
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