[CQ-Contest] Re: Clever Solution for moving a tower

[Leigh S. Jones]

I missed the original post on this thread, but I'll try to pick up on
the thread mid way.

When you go to pick up the tower, equip yourself with a few
2 1/2 to 3 foot long pieces of water pipe in the 1 1/2 to 2 inch
ID range, and a big pry bar.  The kind of pry bar's I'm referring
to generally cost about $10, are about 6 feet long with a solid
shaft about an inch in diameter, a knob at one end, and a
digging blade at the other.  Mine has a tag on it saying it's a 17
pound posthole digger.  Useful for digging the hole the tower's
foundation goes into also.

A couple small sheets of 3/4 inch plywood about 2 to 3 feet
square can come in handy on some terrain.  Use the pry bar to
lift one end of the tower off of the ground far enough to slip a
piece of pipe under the tower near the mid point.  The tower
now balances on the pipe.  Put another pipe near the end of
the tower in the direction you want to move.  The tower slides
or rolls over the pipes.

You'll be surprised how easy it is for two men to handle a
tower like this if there's not too much relief to the surface of
the ground.  W6HX and I used to move towers in the LM-470
class around like this with no problems if we didn't have to
go up and down stairs, etc., and those towers are more than
a thousand pounds.  It can be slow and deliberate work
around some obstacles, but very easy other times.

Of course, when the tower is shipped from the factory and
you need to get it off of the truck you are up against a
different kind of a problem.  Most hams buying a tower have
this problem and it's a real stickler without the proper
equipment.

A rental trailer is probably your best choice for transporting the
tower.  I've been lucky that all of my tower moving problems
have been shorter range, so I could afford to rent a truck to
do the job, because I don't have a trailer hitch ... yet.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ward Silver" <hwardsil at centurytel.net>
To: "CQ-Contest Reflector" <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 8:05 AM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Re: Clever Solution for moving a tower


> > Ok guys, looking for some clever solutions.  I just bought a
tower, MA-550
> > with raising fixture and rotor base, sort of used.  It's in
Portland, I'm
> in
> > Seattle (250 miles away).  It was an opportunity I just couldnt
pass up. I
> > now need to go pick it up.  It's too heavy for a couple of guys to
get it.
> > There arent any rental co's that I can find such that I can rent a
trailer
> > so perhaps a tow could put it onto.  It's 435 lbs, 22 feet long.
> > Suggestions on how to get it up here?
> >
> > Michael Hatzakis, Jr
>
> The suggestion about car trailers is a good one. When I moved mine,
Ken
> KG7VW used a contractor's trailer for hauling building materials.
You might
> check with some contractor friends about that.
>
> To move the tower around, once it's horizontal, I found five friends
(at
> each end of the trip), and made three rope slings.  Two guys would
pick up
> each rope sling (I used pieces of garden hose as the handles) and we
could
> easily pick it up (about 70# apiece) and walk it around.
>
> 73, Ward N0AX
>
>
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