[TowerTalk] mast weight on the rotor or thrust bearing?

[Dan Zimmerman N3OX]

>Actually I think the old, cheap, TV towers had it right. They had a sleeve
>at the top and that served as a "side" thrust bearing.

I'm wondering something, as someone who's spent graduate school
building big machines, but  also someone who's never done anything
with a real tower.

It seems to me that a good approach would be a tower section with two
good bearings mounted in it, one for radial forces only (the top one)
and one for axial and radial forces on the bottom, and then the
rotator would JUST rotate and brake, with a flexible coupler between
the rotator shaft and the mast.

Are people doing it, and I just don't know, or is there some practical
advantage to having your lower bearing be custom-built into the
rotator housing?

73 from an eventual tower owner,
Dan