[TowerTalk] Taking Down TV Towers

[Alan NV8A (ex. AB2OS)]

Hire a crane or a bucket truck?

73

Alan NV8A


On 05/05/05 08:17 am Roy Thistle tossed the following ingredients into 
the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

> A ham I know just moved, and left to towers. There is nothing really
> valuable on top; but they need to come down. They have been up for about
> 30 years.
> 
> They are welded, extruded (I believe) tubular steel construction. Each
> section is 10 feet, three legged, with a triangular cross section welded
> in. These cross sections are every 18 inches or so. Four sections are
> bolted together (3 bolts), for a 40 foot (plus 10 foot mast) height (50 ft
> total). They are bracketed against the house( about the 10 ft level). The
> base, for both, is the bottom section set in a small amount of
> buried concrete(about 2 feet deep).
> 
> This type of TV antenna tower (about 30 to 50 feet height) is quite common
> in the Toronto Ontario area. I don't know who manufactured them; but there
> are a lot of them. They were commonly known as bracketed towers. Sometimes
> they are on top of apartment buildings where they have guy wires.
> 
> I have climbed this type of tower; but as I get older, and they get older,
> I get more leery of doing it. The ones I am considering, appear quite
> solid to about 1/3 the way up, but are pitted and rusted further up.
> 
> Does anyone have any suggestions about how to take them down?
> 
> I can never remember seeing anyone else climbing one, or even putting one
> up. Does anyone recall how these things were erected? Some of them have a
> 30 pound (or more) approx. 2.5 inch (it varies) 12 foot mast, with stacked
> yagis and rotors on top. I can't imagine the average 230 pound TV guy
> swaying around on top (40 feet plus), and hauling up and installing all
> that gear.