[TowerTalk] 1100 foot tower for a buck

[K8RI on TowerTalk]

> I'm sure that there are a bunch of us that are able to take that tower 
> down,
> but with all that they require to take the thing down, and especially the
> part about having 5 years of experience with similar towers, then it would
> probably cost more to take that 11oo footer down than to buy 5 200 
> footers.

A couple years ago there was a beautiful 180 - 190 foot self supporting 
tower on e-bay.  It made the cover of QST back around Sept of 1980 (give or 
take a bit) that ended up on e-bay

John, WD8RXP engineered and built the thing by hand.  Everything above 
either 100 or 120 feet rotated.  The rotator was either a 3 or 5 HP motor 
mounted on a 1" thick steel plate and weighed one ton.  I don't remember all 
the antennas he had up, but it was impressive.  There were, I believe, three 
truck loads of structural steel tubing from 6" down to 3" in that tower.

John passed away after a relatively short illness

They never did receive one bid on the thing with antennas and ended up 
donating the antennas to the local club.  The power company came out and 
dismantled it for the steel.

If I can remember to do it, I'll put up a series of photos I took during the 
construction.

Roger Halstead (K8RI and ARRL 40 year Life Member)
N833R - World's oldest Debonair CD-2
www.rogerhalstead.com (Use return address from home page)