[TowerTalk] How do you move a gin pole *safely* up the tower?

[David Robbins K1TTT]

To safely move a gin pole up a level takes some coordination... and
preferably another rope and pulley. 

If you are manually carrying it up to the top of the new section you proceed
like this:

1. loosen the clamps on the pipe and slide it down so the top pulley is just
above the clamp on the leg.
2. tie it to your belt or have some other clamping arrangement to move it up
the tower, then disconnect the clamps on the tower leg.
3. wrestle it up to the top of the next section and clamp it on... note it
is easy to clamp on because most of the weight is below the clamp now.
4. push the pipe up so it is 10' above the top of the tower and tighten the
clamps on the pipe.
5. disconnect the rope from the top of the section and send it down for the
next section to be pulled up.

My preference, especially with a heavy pole for bigger towers adds a few
steps...  have a separate pulley with a rope through it with one end of the
rope tied to the gin pole clamp and the other end on the ground. and make
the process look like this.

6.  when the top of the new section reaches your level on the tower have the
ground crew stop lifting it for a minute.  Clip the new pulley to the top of
the section.
7. finish pulling the section up and secure it normally.
8. have the ground crew take the slack out of the new rope.
1. loosen the clamps on the pipe and slide it down so the top pulley is just
above the clamp on the leg.
2. have the ground crew take the slack out of the other rope, then
disconnect the clamps on the leg.
3. have the ground crew pull the pole up to the top of the section as you
follow it, then clamp the pole to the leg.
4. push the pipe up so it is 10' above the top of the tower and tighten the
clamps on the pipe.
5. disconnect the rope from the top of the section and send it down for the
next section to be pulled up.

It takes a little thought to keep the ropes out of each others way, but this
system works very nicely and keeps the tower crew from having to move the
pole by hand.


David Robbins K1TTT
e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
web: http://www.k1ttt.net
AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:towertalk-
> bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of R Atkins
> Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 23:18
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: [TowerTalk] How do you move a gin pole *safely* up the tower?
> 
> Hey all! Things all going rather well, we are up to 35 feet so far. other
> than a few mis-starts, all is good except for one thing... How do you get
> the gin pole *safely* up to the next level? It seems like ideally they
> would have two clamps (I don't know if that's right or not)... but this
> one doesn't.
> 
> When I get it up to where I need to mount it, it becomes *very* unwieldy.
> The leverage 8-10 feet up makes it nearly impossible to keep vertical with
> one hand while I try to clamp it to the tower leg with my other hand.
> 
> If you can help.. please reply directly as we are stacking
> sections/building the tower as I write this.
> 
> Thanks!
> Rusty
> K0FE
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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