[TowerTalk] putting beams on tiltover crankup towers

[Al Williams]

Towertalkians who are leery of putting beam antennas on tilted horizontal crankups may be interested in how I installed the Steppir Monstr on my LM470 motorized crankup.  I say I installed but actually my older eyes mostly watched while three helpful hams did most of the work.

One of the helpful hams was a retired civil engineer and he thought of using the tilt raising fixture to tilt the tower,  with one end of the fully assembled Monstr attached, up until it would be at the proper angle for extending the tower through the booms U bolts on the boom-to-mast fixture.  The other end of the boom was mounted on a four wheel nursery type cart so that the boom end would not scrape on the ground as the antenna assembly was dragged up and toward the tower.

In order to lift the antenna high enough at its pulling up end so that the u-bolts in the center of the boom would be lined up correctly for the mast to go through them, the tower was initially extended ~10 feet. When the tower was at its correct tilt for the mast to go through the u-bolts, the boom end was taken off the wagon and firmly anchored to the ground.  A wire rope that had previously been attached to the top of the outer-nonmovable section of tower was brought away from the tower about 80' and firmly anchored taught to hold the tower in place.  (We used my Kabota 4-wheel drive tractor for the anchor)
As a safety precaution an 8' pole (6" diam) was placed to hold the tower --just in case).

The wire rope that had been pulling the tower up was detached, the tower retracted and tilted back down until the mast was in line with the mast-to-boom u-bolts.  The tower was then easily extended through the u-bolts.  During these operations a ham was at each end of the lowest element holding on to a rope that was slung over the element in order to be able to steady the antenna assembly.  Just a little jiggling enabled the mast to wiggle through the u-bolts.

A ham them climbed a ladder to tighten the u-bolts. Note that the Monstr was installed at only about a foot above the tower so that the ladder was not all that long.  All of the wiring had already been connected and tested.

THERE WERE NO "SCARY MOMENTS"

k7puc