[TowerTalk] Looking for tower advice

[Bob Richards]

Hi Kelley,

A few years ago I was in a similar place with putting up a tower as you 
are.  My lot at the time was .25 acres, but with no height 
restrictions.  My personal criteria was I did not want to climb the 
tower and wanted to be able to safely work on my antennas close to the 
ground.  After a lot of investigation I chose a Tashjian W-51 crank up 
tower.  It requires no guys.  This tower cranks up to a maximum height 
of 51 feet and collapses to around a vertical height of 22 feet.  With 
the mast I have my top stacked antenna at 65 feet.  Once tipped over 
from the collapsed position I can do all my antenna work from a step ladder.

I replaced both winches that came with the tower (crank up/down, 
tipping) with worm drive winches that use a 5/8 inch hex to turn them.  
I use the hex on both with a larger electric drill and a 5/8 inch socket 
to turn the winches.  Way better than a hand crank.  A worm drive can be 
stopped at any point in the cranking and, under tension, auto lock in 
that position.  In your case raise the tower to your 30-40 foot limit 
and stop cranking.

Tower accessories that I bought with the tower included a rotor plate 
for my Ham-4 and a thrust bearing to better hold the mast.

My understanding is that the W-51 tower is an older design first 
manufactured by Tri-Ex, so a used W-51 may be available out there that 
could help your budget.

My primary tower antenna is a Force 12 c-3ss which gives me a turning 
radius of about 17 feet.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Bob Richards  NZ6G


On 3/8/2021 1:33 PM, Kelley wrote:
> I recently moved to an new QTH. My yard is much smaller than my 
> previous yard (2.5 acres versus about .3 acres). I've currently got an 
> all-band dipole up but I've been thinking about a small tower. I've 
> had towers at previous QTH's, but I'm looking for something smaller 
> and easier to work with.
>
> The city I live in restricts amateur towers to a maximum of 40 feet 
> (somewhere around 30 feet would be good). Ideally, I'm looking for a 
> setup that lets me work on antennas from the ground. I'm looking at 
> installing a small tri-band beam (perhaps something like a Cushcraft 
> A3S), rotor, a vhf/uhf vertical, and an inverted V wire antenna. It 
> would have to be self-supporting (there's no room for guy wires). 
> Something used is probably more inline with my budget.
>
> Any thoughts, suggestions, recommendations, dos, don'ts...
>
> Thanks,
>
> Kelley w0rk
>
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