[TowerTalk] Gin Pole

[Dubovsky, George]

Ed,

I borrowed the local club's Rohn gin pole and copied it. I have the
annotated sketches of the tower clamp assembly somewhere; I could probably
scan them for you. For the pole, I used the 2"x12'x1/4" wall aluminum tube
from an Antenna Specialists 4-dipole VHF array (didn't have too many holes
in it). I always wanted a slightly longer gin pole, so I welded about three
feet to the bottom and beefed up the bottom by sleeving it internally with
about 5' of 1 1/2" od x 1/4" wall aluminum tubing. I plug welded the inner
tube to the outer through the existing holes. I turned a pulley on the
lathe, and made up the pulley mounting bracket out of pieces of either 1/4"
or 3/8" alum plate (can't remember now) welded to the top of the pipe. 

If you can't get the aluminum tube for cheap, this may not represent much of
a saving. I also have a good machine shop and a TIG welder, and a friend
with some old land-mobile base station arrays in his garage, so it was a
no-brainer for me.

And I don't want to hear about welding reducing the T6 aluminum properties
to T4 or less - this gin pole has put up or taken down perhaps a dozen 25
and 45 towers and countless antennas over the last ten years, and it's still
straight ;)

Where the heck is Spencer, VA?

73,

geo - n4ua (in Goode, VA - near Lynchburg)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ed Smith [mailto:w4eds at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 3:43 PM
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: [TowerTalk] Gin Pole
> 
> 
> Hi,
>  
> Looking for info on building my own gin pole for putting up 
> 25G sections, please.
>  
> I have a machine shop and do not want to spend $350.
>  
> Thanks,
>  
> Ed Smith   W4EDS
> Spencer, VA
>  
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