[Towertalk] Trylon one year inspection

[EUGENE SMAR]

TT:

     Thursday afternoon I spent about an hour on my year-old T-500-64 tower
doing maintenance inspections.  The overall finish of the Trylon steel is
still excellent.  I found no noticeable signs of corrosion on the exposed
surfaces, other than the initial rust on the edges of the angle pieces.
This rusting was reported on by others and myself on TT, and is apparently
due to the cutting of the pieces after the corrosion-inhibiting treatment
had been applied.  (Trylon's aren't galvanized.)

     Some of the higher-up joint bolts needed to be snugged down a bit.
Either I had not fastened them sufficiently when initially constructing the
tower (it was not factory built), or they had come loose due to wind loading
or other motion.  I'll check on these same bolts again in the spring just to
be sure.  I found all the bolts for the angle braces (at least the ones I
checked at random) to be snug.

     I also injected some more marine grease into the zerk fitting on the
mast bearing at the top of the tower.  Overall the tower system seems to be
in good shape.

BOTTOM LINE:  I'm very pleased with the Trylon in terms of value and
performance.  (The Skyhawk's a pretty good performer, too.)

73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F
(Not an employee of Trylon, etc.)
P.S.  I've got most of the pieces for a home-brew 6M 3L Yagi in the garage.
I'm anxious to put it on the tower and run the coax into the antenna switch
box at ground level.  I think I might be needing an 8-position switch pretty
soon.