[TowerTalk] Shipping Companies

[Mike]

This is why a twin axle boat trailer with a long tongue works well for the
purpose of hauling a tower.  It is designed for a tail heavy load.  I pulled
a 70 foot crank up tower from Skips in Socal up to Norcal at 65 -70 MPH with
problems.  We loaded with an Engine hoist and I unloaded also with an engine
hoist.

Mike 

-----Original Message-----


That is not a idle consideration.  About 40 years ago my then wife and I 
were relocating to a new QTH with all of our belongings packed into an 
overloaded U-Haul trailer being towed by our car.  At one point my wife 
was driving at a conservative speed (well less than the speed limit) in 
the right hand lane of a major highway ... three lanes in each direction 
with a median between them.  Suddenly the trailer started to violently 
oscillate side to side, increasing in sideways travel with each swing.  
Unfortunately my wife touched the brakes to try to slow down, which only 
aggravated the situation.  The trailer tossed us back and forth for what 
seemed like an eternity, literally picked the rear of the car off the 
ground a few times, and then deposited us on the median pointed the 
direction from which we had just come.  Luckily there were no other 
vehicles around us at the time and nobody was injured ... and I'm amazed 
to this day that the hitch held.

We had already driven for several hours at that same speed, and the 
stretch of highway where all this happened was the smoothest stretch of 
road you'd ever want to see.  My car suspension was tight (I had beefed 
it up with stiffer springs, etc) and the trailer had no defects.  The 
problem was strictly due to the combination of too much weight in the 
wrong place in the trailer.

This is one of those situations where conservatism could save your life, 
or more importantly that of someone else.

73,
Dave   AB7E



On 12/2/2010 6:14 PM, EZ Rhino wrote:
> One other thing I haven't heard mentioned yet.  Putting a 2k pound tower
that is 22' long (nested) on a typical 16' or 18' car hauler flatbed trailer
means you've got several feet of tower sticking out the rear.  This means
the weight is not centered over the axles; in fact, it is too far over the
rear end.  Guess what happens when you start moving at freeway speeds?  The
trailer will sway, possibly violently, and can easily cause an accident.  A
certain amount of tongue weight needs to be maintained to prevent this.
Putting the tower on the trailer with the base end toward the tow vehicle is
important; more weight may be needed to get it right.  A quick side trip to
Home Despot for some 80 pound sacks of concrete to put on the front of the
trailer can provide enough ballast to make it tow without swaying.  The
aforementioned boat trailer works nicely for towers because the axles are
further to the rear to handle the rearward weight of boats.
>
> I hauled a buddy's US TOwer HDX572 on my trailer and it did sway a bit at
about 60mph (or faster).  We only had to move it about 10 miles, so we kept
the speed down and it was fine.
> Chris
> KF7P

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