[TowerTalk] Cutting 2" Heavy Wall Cr-Mo Mast Up on Tower

[TexasRF--- via TowerTalk]

In a private email, Vic tells me about the difficulty working with the very 
 heavy and long mast. I get that, it would be a chore for anyone.
 
In a previous installation I had a 25ft long mast installed in a 120ft tall 
 45G tower. This mast was made of three different diameter steel tubes; the 
top  piece being 2" diameter. It was so heavy that there was no practical 
way for a  single person to handle it. Being a typical cheap ham there would 
be no crane  hired for the job either.
 
The solution to this dilema was constructing a climbable gin pole made of  
two 25G tower sections. A pair of 2" X 2" angles bolted back to back and 
spaced  about three feet apart made up the means to connect the 25G face to 
face with  the main tower. Double U bolts were used to fasten the angles to the 
tower and  gin pole legs. A regular gin pole was used to hoist the 25G 
sections up one at a  time and connected together with normal 25G leg bolts.
 
Once in place, it was a breeze to install the long mast and climb the gin  
pole to install stacks of VHF and UHF antennas up and down the 20+ feet of 
the  mast extending above the top of the tower.
 
It took a couple of extra hours to rig and unrig the 25G sections but the  
job was so much easier and safer that in the long run it was all  worthwhile.
 
I have since used the 25G rig to stack 20ft long 65G sections with relative 
 ease. It was also used to install some very heavy homebrew 75 and 40m 
beams on  199 ft 65G and 55G towers. Thank goodness for the John Deere tractor 
that did  the heavy lifting using a 5/8" rope and couple of snatch blocks.
 
I found that only a single man as a ground crew and myself up the tower was 
 enough for any job we took on.
 
73,
Gerald K5GW
 
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 7/26/2014 6:14:50 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
dezrat at outlook.com writes:

ORIGINAL  MESSAGE:          (may be snipped)

On  7/26/2014 12:43 PM, Charlie Gallo wrote:
> Of  course   there  is  the  other  option - just leave it as is, is  it
> really hurting anything?

REPLY:

Why not leave it as  is and allow it to function as a lightning rod? Much 
better for a bolt to  hit the mast rather than your antenna.

73, Bill  W6WRT

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