[TowerTalk] Lowering mast on fixed tower

[Jim White, K4OJ]

  Using
> a comealong to lower the mast still begs the question of how to get this
> contraption back up through the tower.  I don't see myself trying to lift 200+
> pounds while anchoring my feet at the top of the tower.
> 

Its the same same - the comealong is for both the lowering and raising - 
it actually is most likely easier to use for raising as 
"unwinding"/lowering is not as easy on a comealong as tensioning is...


A lot of comealongs come with a pulley on the line already -

if you attach that pulley at the high point this will give you some 
angle-ability,
you should then be able to operate the handle of the comealong outside 
of the tower - the body of it will have a hook on it that you can attach 
to a leg of the tower - an easy method is to use one of those 
prefabricate cable slings that has a loop at each end - you can marry 
that sling to the intersection of the diagonals and the tower leg so it 
cannot "walk" along the leg and then put both ends of the sling on the 
hook on the body of the comealong...

You will undoubtedly have to do this in a couple of iterations - make 
sure you have something to take the weight of the mast while you 
re-attach the pulling point and adjust the cable back onto the spool...

NOTE a good thing to have with you is a piece of angle stock that has a 
u-bolt on it in its middle - that u- bolt attaches to the mast and then 
you can lash on of the ends onto a tower leg and you will keep the 
antennas from wind milling... until you have tried to grab a mast that 
is twisting you do not realize how helpless your grip is on that 2" pipe 
as far as stopping a runaway breeze riding antenna - if you do not catch 
it it could end up ripping off the coaxes, etc...

IF you are servicing or replacing a rotor it is a good idea to leave the 
rotator in the middle of its rotation - usually N for us NA types - why?

IF you know where the rotor was last aimed you can then go ahead and 
bolt everything down when you are done without having some yell at you 
over the radio (r the winds) that the rotor says it is East by Northeast 
now... etc... NORTH is easy to remember, true or otherwise!

Good luck, Bob!

Jim, K4OJ