[TowerTalk] Tower installation

[Mike Miller]

Gee, that makes me feel good.  Not that you've been working on it for 45 days, since I've been on mine for nearly 4 months (much of that waiting on the donated yagi to arrive), but that I seem to have gotten a bargain by comparison.

Hole (5 X 5 X 8) $ free - Included in some other work I had done at no extra charge
Concrete, 7.75 yards $675 - We just barely managed to get the 'chutes to the back yard 
				where the tower is placed
Rebar cage $90 - Mine isn't welded like many, but tied together with rebar ties...seems
				strong enough, though
Tree trimming $600 - Needed a hole for the yagi
Tower erection $75 - Performed by the tree trimmer

My concrete was finished by a friend with some concrete experience...not perfect, but passable.  The tower (Rohn HDBX-40) was assembled by myself on the ground and stood upright by the tree trimmer with his boom truck.  The pictures taken at the time this operation were performed illustrate how we accomplished this.  It really worked quite well, and saved a bunch of time and headaches.

Thanks to this ice storm, I'm waiting on warmer weather so that I can trench between the house and the tower to bury the coax conduit and finish the cabling, then I'll run the 40' of mast between the rotor and the top of the tower and see if I can't get the tribander here to get it on top of the tower, along with the 2m yagi.  Before anyone gets excited, I have a rotor plate at the bottom of my tower as well as at the top, and my rotor is at the bottom with a thrust bearing at the top, so 40' of mast is an acceptable amount in this case.

Mine started out a relatively inexpensive project, and still is, as far as towers goes, but I want to get it finished...

73,

Mike, WA0ZOG


Message: 10
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 17:27:27 -0500
From: "Gary  - N3JPU" <n3jpu at speakeasy.net>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Tower installation
To: <TowerTalk at contesting.com>
Message-ID: <01c301c739bd$81715980$0a01a8c0 at gary>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="US-ASCII"

Just finishing up on my tower I have been working on for the past 45 days:

Hole (4x4x9')	$300
Concrete, 7 yards	$1400 (includes the cost of the pump truck to pump
it 75' to back yard.
Rebar $300

Did all the rest of the work myself.

Gary Mitchelson
N3JPU Montgomery Co. MD  FM19
USAF MARS and SHARES: AFA1PU
MD/DC State USAF MARS Director AFF1MD
USAF MARS Technical Services Manager AFN1TS 
http://www.mitchelson.org/