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

[Bob Smith]

Well Rusty,

you got to do a little 'inventing'

First, when the tower section is set and you are ready to move to the 
next section, you tie a large
knot, like a bow-tie, in the pull rope about 5' below the 
clamp.  This knot will stop the ginple from
sliding down the rope when you release the clamp on the tower..  You 
release the clamp and
slowly lower the ginpole so the knot contacts the pulley and stops, 
and the ginpole is hanging
in the air off the rope.

Climb to the top of the new tower section, belt in at the very top of 
the tower so you can extend yourself
above the top of the tower (IE: waist and up is above the top of the 
tower).  Pull the rope that is securing
the ginpole up , the ginpole raises.  When you can grab the ginpole 
slowly raise it.  I usually have my legs
spread on the corner over the rope.  This way you raise the ginpole 
up between your legs.  this way also
you have a better way to balance the ginpole .  When the clamp assy 
gets up to the mounting height you now
have the ability to balance the ginpole and clamp it to the top of 
the tower section.

As a little aside, most people start climbing triangle tower on the 
face, like a ladder.  You will find that it's
a lot easier to climb the 'point' ie, up the vertical pipe on the 
corner.  reference the above part about
raising the ginpole between your legs.

It take a little playing with the balancing act, but you will finally 
get the hang of it.  Everybody does, or
they don't get the tower installed.

Also, be sure your ginpole is aluminum tubing with only a steel 
clamp.  I've seen a few people with steel
tubing or steel pipe and this makes things a little heavy.  A normal 
12' ginpole with the clamp ways
about 15-20 lbs.

Gud luck, ain't tower stacking fun,, I love it because it's something 
that a lot of people pay other's to
do...   Rohn 25 is easy, it's just the rohn 65 that breaks you 
back.,  but the ginpole for either weighs
the same.

73, happy climbing

Bob
NA6T

Robert Smith Consulting
"Wireless Installations -- Government, Businesses & ISP's"
F.C.C. Licensed-Commercial & Amateur Services
A.R.S NA6T
ARRL Life Member
1-707-964-4931 w/answering machine
Fort Bragg, California   95437

"On The Air-Conditioned Mendocino Coast, In REAL Northern California"
No trees were destroyed in the sending of this message.
However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
------------------------------

Message: 8
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:18:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: R Atkins <rusty_atkins at yahoo.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] How do you move a gin pole *safely* up the tower?
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Message-ID: <1658.84152.qm at web36409.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ascii

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