[TowerTalk] Best way of getting a line over a tree

Jim Brown jim at audiosystemsgroup.com
Wed Dec 24 12:42:48 EST 2008


On Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:25:52 -0800, Dick Dievendorff wrote:

>I've heard that tennis ball launchers are all the rage.

>http://www.antennalaunchers.com/antlaunching.html is one site that describes
>these beasts.

Yes, and this thing works REALLY well. I've got 170 ft redwoods, and the 
tennis ball launcher easily clears them!  

I've also used the "Big Shot" super slingshot sold by Sherrill Tree Service 
(in NC). It's fine for 80 ft or so. And I've seen guys do well with Wrist 
Rockets. 

>Safety is the main issue here.  

The tennis ball launcher and the Big Shot are pretty safe. 

If you want that antenna to STAY up there, you're going to need a pulley and a 
weight. The way to do a pulley is to first get a heavy support rope up there, 
then tie a pulley to it on the ground, put the antenna rope through the 
pulley, and pull the pulley up. In other words, a continuous loop of rope from 
top to bottom with a pulley attached. It takes a day to do this on both ends, 
but it's well worth the trouble. Use a marine pulley. 

I have long antennas and big coax up 100 ft. That's a lot of weight. My end 
weights are big water jugs filled with dry sand (6 gal, as I recall). Sand is 
about 1.5X as dense as water. Also, there's no freezing problem. :) My weights 
are about 90#. 

73,

Jim K9YC




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