[TowerTalk] Re: US Tower Raising Fixture Question

[Joe - WDØM]

Hi Bill,

I too have a TX-455, and SteppIR (4 element).  There is a way to put the 
antenna on the tower fairly easily.  Check my web page to see how.  My wife 
assisted briefly, but there is virtually NO physical requirement in lifting 
the antenna, simply guiding it.  I put the antenna together completely on 
the ground before putting it on the tower.  Check it out, and feel free to 
ask questions if you have any:

http://home.centurytel.net/WD0M/

Click on Ham Radio, then SteppIR 4 element....hopefully, the pictures will 
show you how I did it.  I tied a rope to the SteppIR mast plate and then to 
the tower so that when I cranked the tower up in the air, it raised the 
antenna to the near vertical position.  Let me know if the instructions 
weren't clear.

73,
Joe
WDØM


At 09:44 AM 11/12/2004, you wrote:




>I went through the same stages with my TX-455 tower.  I thought cranking
>the tower upright was a little tough, but then cranking the tower up is
>worse.  It takes about 95 turns of the handle to fully extend it and I need
>a break after 10-15 turns.  I usually do it in 3 sessions, with an hour or
>two between sessions. I am not quite as young as I was a few years ago, but
>I generally get around OK and this was a surprise.  The motions involved
>with the winches stress body areas not normally stressed in easy day-to-day
>living.
>
>I'll need to crank the tower down and then lay it over when my 3 element
>SteppIR arrives.  I hope I can assemble it by installing half the boom and
>two elements (while the tower is almost flat on the ground) and then raise
>the tower enough (from the flat-on-the-ground position) to install the
>other boom half and the last element.
>
>The top of the tower gets crowded.  I have a coax switch (strapped to the
>standoff), a half sloper (which I will not attempt to tune until the beam
>in installed) and a terminated inverted V dipole suspended about 3 feet
>from the tower top.  What with the control cables (beam, rotator), coax
>(two feed lines), switch and jumpers, the whole thing became more crowded
>than I expected.  I positioned a short wooden dowel, suspended down the
>standoff arm, to take the vertical weight of the cables.  I did not want to
>have the weight suspended from the sharp right-angle turn provided by the
>bare standoff arm.
>
>Bill Ogden
>W2WO