[TowerTalk] Walking Down Crank-Up

[jeff griffin]

Sorry for the short message. Here is the complete version. In NJ there was a
tower company(Morrison tower) that used to use something also called a tower
jack. I was on good terms with them, so I was allowed to borrow it on
occasion. This was composed of two things. One was a piece of pipe that was
somewhat adjustable by putting a bolt through with a base, think of a big
car jack stand. The second was a large jacking device, think of a very large
old car bumper jack with a tower holding fixture on top. You would simply
get the tower ready to tilt over, by removing one of the bolts. Then you
would let the tower gently fall in the direction of the jack stand device,
maybe a foot or so. Then you would use the jacking device to gently lift the
tower off of the jack stand device. Then you would place the jack stand
device farther up the tower and then lower it some more onto the
repositioned jack stand. And on and on the tower will be worked down to the
ground completely under control. I used to raise and lower a 65 foot tower
this way for antenna maintenance without a crane.

73 Jeff kb2m 


-----Original Message-----
From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Jim
Rhodes
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2017 8:38 PM
To: Bob Matthews
Cc: Towertalk Reflector
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Walking Down Crank-Up

I wouildn't recommend it myself. I have an HG54, which is a bit heavier, and
I made a 'falling derrick' arrangement with 2 ten foot pieces of 1.5 inch
pipe and some steel plate. On one end of each pipe a piece of plate cut into
a strap with 1/4 inch holes to bolt to pipe and a 3/4 inch (for my
base) hole on the end to fit over the end of the lower bolt on the 'hinge'
side of the tower. On the other end each pipe had a piece cut a couple
inches wide and bolted to the same side as the lower end (very important)
these stick out about 6 inches and were bolted together a couple of inches
past the end of the pipe. Then above that a large welded eye bolt or
something to give you a place to fasten cables and stuff to. The bottom
bolts on the hinge side of the base will need to be replaced with slightly
longer bolts more than likely as that is where they fasten for a pivot.. I
use a nylon lift strap on the tower side, about a 20 foot thing with loops
on both ends that goes to a clevis at the top of the pipes and around the
tower, threaded between the bracing so it doesn't sl;ip up or down. I
happened to have an old tower base in about the right place to anchor a worm
drive winch to so I can raise and lower the tower by myself. If you have the
space, a good size truck and a couple of buddies you could do it that way.
Takes quite a bit to get it started, buy it gets real (really) heavy as it
gets more horizontal. I use an old 55 gal barrel to support it high enough
to keep the boom of the beam out of the dirt. The old manual showed an
arrangement made out of 2x6's if I remember correctly. Questions, contact me
directly. I can probably go find it in the weeds and take some pictures.

On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 6:44 PM, Bob Matthews <kt3rr at verizon.net> wrote:

> Hello All,
> I have a Hygain 52SS crank-up tower on a hinged base. Has anyone on 
> here tried to walk a tower down this size? It's 22 feet nested. Weighs 
> about 400 lbs I believe. Wondering how many men it would take to walk 
> it down on it's hinged base from the vertical to the horizontal 
> position on the ground. I don't believe there's enough room to get a 
> crane in to do this, so I'm wondering how many people it would take to
walk it down.
> Thanks in advance for your input.
> Bob  KT3RR