[TowerTalk] Tilt Up Tower

[Roger (K8RI)]

>
> Gary "Joe" Mayfield wrote:
>   
>> I have an HDBX-48 that I hope to put up in a couple of months.  The base
>>     
> is
>   
Are you going to have any thing on the tower when you tilt it up?

"As to the over the roof" with a car/jeep/winch there are some safety 
issues in addition to the obvious or some one driving off the 
momentarily unattended vehicle.   The HDBX is not a heavy weight tower 
and not terribly difficult to tip up at the 48' with a good crew. Weight 
on top (rotator and antenna) complicates things in a hurry.

If the house has a low pitch roof the initial pull against the tower 
base can be tremendous and possubly enough to cause failure.

We put up a 50', 25G *with* a tribander AND rotator using the "rope over 
the roof", but with man power only,  The 25G is considerably heavier 
than the 48' HDBX. There were 3 men lifting the tower, one on the roof 
supporting the rope, two out in the driveway pulling on said rope, AND 2 
manning a relatively short extension ladder as a prop against the tower. 
As we'd raise the tower the two in the drive would take up rope and as 
soon as the tower was high enough the ladder was used as a prop. This 
meant the ladder took over holding about time the angle become such that 
the three lifting the tower had reached *their* load limit.  Between 
them pushing, the two on the ladder pushing, and the two in the driveway 
pulling we made it up. 

We all knew this was near our limits, and we had a minimal crew who knew 
what they were doing,  so it was done in such a manner that if it failed 
or got away from us, the antenna and tower were to be sacrificed. IOW if 
it's reached the point of too much to handle, just get out of the way 
and let 'er go.

It would have been a lot easier if we'd had three "heavy weights" on the 
rope in the driveway and one more for a total of 4 lifting on the 
tower.  The extra two would have made it much easier and safer. 

What I don't like about using power winches is there is little feel for 
the operator to know what is happening while physically pulling on the 
rope doesn't have near the power it does have plenty of feed back. <:-))

73 & good luck,

Roger (K8RI)
>> designed to allow for the tower to be tilted up.  I am putting the tower
>> near the house and do not have room for a falling derrick.  Rohn is very
>> vague about tilting the tower up/down.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Anyone have some neat ideas or better yet pictures?
>>
>>  
>>
>> 73,
>>
>> Joe kk0sd
>>
>>     
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