[TowerTalk] Mast Climbing

[Dale L. Martin]

The question about mast steps piqued my thoughts about a
situation our club station is facing right now.  The 4-element
15-meter beam at 90' (80' Rohn 45G plus 10' of mast above the top
thrust bearing) has lost the back 1/4 of the boom and reflector
element and 2/3 of the starboard side director element.  A really
sad looking antenna, but the darn thing still works!

Anyway, I recall at one time, before my climbing days, the mast
did have mast steps (I may well have seen them in one of the tool
boxes in the station, recently).

The mast material is unknown.  The antenna system (4-element 15m
beam at the 10' above the tower top and and a 4-element 20m beam
at 1' above the tower top) has been in place for many, many
years--at least since about 1975 when the 20m beam came back with
a NASA scientist who had been working in Mexico.  The mast is
straight as an arrow in spite of hurricanes, tropical storms, and
who knows what other kind of storm products that have rolled
through the Houston/Galveston area over the past 25 years.--you
remember them, don't ya Tom/K5RC?.

My question is this: Given that the mast has sustained all that
without a sign of stress or weakness, how much more stress on it
do you think I (at 160 lbs) would add by putting a couple of mast
steps on the mast to where I could reach to lower the 15m beam?
God, but that makes my mouth go dry thinking about it...

Dale Martin, KG5U
kg5u@hal-pc.org
http://www.hal-pc.org/~kg5u



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