[Mldxcc] Advice on Tower Shipping

[w6de]

Steve:

There are two ways to transport the tower to your QTH.
1) Rent a large U-Haul van and stick the towers in it.  Bring lots of rope
and wood blocks to tie off the towers and prevent rolling.  Place a hefty
block of wood at the head of the van area for the base of the towers to rest
against--I've used a wood block 4' long, 4" x 8" for this purpose.
Otherwise you will puncture the forward wall.  MEASURE the van first, rental
companies state the size as the length of the whole box including the area
over the cab.  You have to be sure the floor will accept your tower length
and still close the rear door.

2) have some friend with a pick-up truck and you rent a trailer.  To pick up
the tower you will need to rent a flatbed trailer and a friend with a full
size pick-up truck to make the round trip to Fowler and back.  While the
load may not be very heavy the trailer will likely be fairly heavy and
exceed the towing capacity of compact pick-up trucks and most "crossover"
SUVs.  Rental yards won't rent a flatbed or car hauler trailer for a vehicle
that won't handle whatever could be put on it, not what you claim you are
going to do. So that means you will have to have a vehicle rated to tow
roughly 7500 pounds.

The danger in hauling towers is the inertia of the towers on a sudden stop.
Whatever you rent make sure it has a sturdy forward bulkhead.

Buy two sturdy flat 4-wheel furniture dollies at Home Depot for each tower.
You will need these to roll the towers into and out of the Van.  Prepare the
dollies by fastening wood blocks to them for keeping the towers on the
dollies as you shove them around.

Quite frankly at your QTH with its steep drive way, rent a Van or stake bed
truck with a 24' bed to get it from the factory and up your driveway.  Also,
at your QTH with the steep terrain,  it will require off-loading the towers
where you will erect the towers.  If you don't do that you may need to rent
a tractor to lift and transport the tower(s) to the tower site.

Make sure the tower company can insert the tower into a Van. It is pretty
likely that they can lift it and place it on a stake bed, but it never hurts
to ask before you show up.  You can take the tower out of the Van or off the
truck with a portable engine hoist--the kind back yard mechanics use to pull
motors out of cars.  You can rent one at almost any rental yard.  Get some
4' x 8' sheets of at least 1/2" plywood to be able to roll the engine hoist
on the soft ground. Get a couple of guys to help off load the towers.

Dave, w6de


-----Original Message-----
From: Mldxcc [mailto:mldxcc-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Steve Dyer
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 14:52
To: mldxcc at contesting.com
Subject: [Mldxcc] Advice on Tower Shipping

Seeking the collective wisdom of the Club. This is my first station with
towers and I have much to learn about station building.

I just purchased two new towers from Tashjian.

Standard freight shipping did not seem to make sense. Tashjian indicated
they would likely not come down my "street" since there is no turn-around.
Definitely not up the driveway. So I would have to arrange for an offsite
pickup anyhow.

Tower 1 is 23' retracted and ~1100 lbs. Tower 2 is 21' retracted and ~300
lbs.
Other than their length, it's not a big load.


Right now the order is to be picked up at the factory in Fowler.


Suggestions on the simplest way to transport and offload?

Thanks es 73,

Steve
W1SRD
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