[TowerTalk] Need help with tower id and price

[Jim Pruitt]

Hello Jim.

Your advice is very good.  In fact,  it is the advice I gave myself and the 
daughter when I was asked to help with the liquidation.  I even put her in 
contact with the club president.  He drove down there (50 miles) and talked 
to her and said he would get back to her.  That was 3 months ago and can not 
get him to answer or respond.  I am 85 miles from the daughter and the 
tower.  I was hoping the tower was worth something and agreed to try to 
dispose of it but looks like I will be taking it down alone.  I took down a 
crank up mast that turned out to be a 22ft crankup light pole.  I am not 
sure why the ham stayed at around 20ft but the tower appears to be around 
20ft and so was the crank up mast and the end support for the dipole.

I thank everyone for your help.

Jim Pruitt
WA7DUY

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Lux" <jimlux at earthlink.net>
To: <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 6:42 AM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Need help with tower id and price


> On 10/6/14, 11:25 PM, Jim Pruitt wrote:
>> I have been asked to help the daughter of a silent key (W7ZZV) liquidate 
>> her father's gear.  I have some pictures of the tower at:
>> https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w2o5eeo7l6uwos3/AAAfQZRvgBewZKgRWMVbVi96a?dl=0
>> of a tower that says "Short Bott 40) at the bottom.  The tower is not 
>> tubular but uses heavy sheetmetal and appears to be about 25ft tall (as a 
>> guess).  It currently has a commercial vhf/uhf JPole on it.
>>
>> Can someone help me with a value for the tower and where it might be 
>> listed?
>>
>
> Towers of unknown age and maintenance history are usually not worth very 
> much: the cost and risk in bringing it down is more than the value of the 
> scrap metal in some cases.  If someone happens to have free use of a 
> bucket truck or crane, that can change the situation a bit, because you 
> can bring down a pretty manky tower more safely, and once it's on the 
> ground, you can take a good look at the parts to assess the strength. 
> Tubular leg towers in places where rains, for instance, can look fine from 
> the outside, but be rusted out on the inside of the tubes.
>
> This one, at least, it looks like a group who had a spare morning could 
> probably lay it down safely (someone on the roof to tie off a lowering 
> line to a pulley, etc.).  It's not like some of the rusty light duty 
> lattice TV antenna towers I've seen where the best thing is to chop it and 
> let it fall like a tree: nobody in their right mind would climb it. The 
> bolts might be rusted, which means dismantling it could be a challenge 
> (air tools, impact wrench, air chisel are your friends).
>
> All that takes time, and while people probably aren't being paid, time is 
> still money in some sense (the value of the tower has to be more than the 
> time you spend taking it down and then fixing it).
>
> Now if someone happens to have a need for spare parts (e.g. there's a lot 
> of Rohn 25 sections floating around) and this fits the bill, then again, 
> that can change the calculation.
>
> Your best bet is to find a local ham club where the members might actually 
> be familiar with the tower and related equipment.
>
>
>
>> The silent key also had a CDE AR22 (tv) rotor and control head that just 
>> came back from Norm the rotor doctor.  The silent key had a tag on the 
>> rotor that said it should be worth $50.  I suspect he spent that much 
>> getting it fixed.  Can someone give me an idea what that rotor with 
>> control head and some 4 conductor cable would be worth?
>>
>> He also had what appears to be a 5 element Radio Shack TV antenna that 
>> has been converted to vhf ham band per an article in one of the 
>> magazines.  There is also a push up mast that is 2 section.
>>
>> Thank you for your help.
>>
>> Jim Pruitt
>> WA7DUY
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
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