[TowerTalk] How to Level a Crank-up?

[K8RI]

On 1/2/2012 1:25 PM, Gene Fuller wrote:
> On a calm day, you could hang a string, with a small weight on the end, from
> the top of each tower leg.    Gene / W2LU
It's easier to hand the string from the top of the tower, down the inside.
OTOH I have never found a day calm enough to do this with  a  tower 
taller than 40 feet.   I use the Transit level weight which comes to a 
point.

Even an what felt like calm days the string would move off to one side 
and it was very difficult to detect. Around here those days are very 
rare.  With the 100 foot 45 G even on those hot sultry (suffocating) 
calm summer days I find a light breeze at the top.
I used one of the laser transits, although a laser level would be much 
cheaper.  However some of then are barely good enough to square up a 
small room.

Mine is a guyed tower (45G) and the bottom two sections were carefully 
leveled. Then the level was checked with each set of guys added. When I 
got to the top it was just a matter of tightening the guys a 40 or 30# 
at a time. So it went up straight.

With a crank up you can only level it for a calm day.  I think you will 
find it will be surprisingly straight, except on really windy days and 
those are when you want to crank it down anyway.

73

Roger (K8RI)
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steve Jones"<n6sj at earthlink.net>
> To:<towertalk at contesting.com>
> Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 12:42 PM
> Subject: [TowerTalk] How to Level a Crank-up?
>
>
>> I want to level my new US Tower HDX-589.  I put a 4' carpenter's level on
>> all three legs of the base section and have levelled them.  This is all US
>> Tower recommends.
>>
>> Is there anything more I can do?  I have heard of using two theodolytes
>> with
>> it fully extended.  But I figure the sections must lean a bit due to the
>> clearances that allow them to slide past each other.  I don't want to tilt
>> the bottom section to compensate for that lean, since different antenna
>> loads or wind loads will probably make it lean different directions.
>>
>> With the bottom section leveled, am I done?
>>
>> 73,
>> Steve
>> N6SJ
>>
>>
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