[TowerTalk] small tower help pls.

[Don Havlicek]

 From your description, I would suggest the following steps:

1.  take that tower to the scrap-metal yard and sell it for scrap price. 
 What you have described isn't worth re-working for any ham radio 
purposes .. especially that 6 m yagi.
2.  take the few $$ you get for scrap and use it [with pocket funds] to 
purchase a tower designed for your purposes .. even a new TV tower would 
work very well
3.  anchor your tower in concrete, even if using anchor rods/tilt-over 
feature.
4.  enjoy!

Don
N8DE

fee at sfu.ca wrote:

>Greetings tower gurus !
>
>I was recently given ( yes, free ) a tower by my neighbor.
>
>He doesn't know what it is because it was attached to his house already when
>he moved in.
>
>We both SUSPECT it is of Radio Shack origin and designed for TV ( no
>antennas mounted ).
>
>
>--- pause to let the laughing and pointing stop ---
>
>
>It is triangular and is comprised of four 10 foot sections.
>
>The material appears to be galvanized tubular steel and it measures 10.5" or
>so across the face and weighs about 25 lbs per 10 ' section.
>
>Before you start yelling at me, I do not plan to mount any HF antennas on
>it, VHF / UHF only.
>
>HF duties will continue to be carried out by my G5RV and inverted V wires.
>
>I only plan on using 3 of 4 sections because I only have room for 30 feet or
>so of tower to fall and still be in my yard.
>
>I don't want to climb this tower, the "rungs" are tack-welded 'U" channel
>and I am also lazy.
>
>I'd like to make this a tilt-over tower.
>
>The antennas I plan to mount are a Cushcraft 5 element 6M beam ( 2.6 sq. ft.
>wind area ) and a 13 element 2M beam ( .4 sq ft. ).
>
>The tower was attached to the neighbor's house with ( shudder ) home made
>brackets and the base was secured to 2 building blocks buried in the dirt.
>
>I'd rather not dig and pour concrete so I'm considering a metal plate
>secured to the ground with long rods driven in and heavy brackets to the
>foundation.
>
>I'd also like to find / build a hinging base, the current base is just a
>flat plate.
>
>The galvanizing is also failing on some tubes ( 1/3 of them ) but it appears
>to be only surface rust - I'd like to paint the tower.
>
>I'd also like to avoid a lot of guy wires and make this mostly
>self-supporting via heavy brackets to the house.
>
>Are there any words of advice please, amidst the jeers ?
>
>Thanks a lot, 73....dave / VE7SGI.
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