Cheapest tower's

This is the cheapest tower for hanging wire antennas.  

We start here. The 24' gin pole is on the right, the 65' gin pole is on the center and the 150' tower is on the left side.

First we pull up the 24' gin pole

 Now the 24' gin pole will pull up the 65' gin pole

 the 65' gin pole coming up

Now 65' gin pole lifting the 150' foot tower

 This is the hinge set up; the 150' tower on the left and the gin pole in the center.

 Starting to lift the 150' tower, and we have a 200 foot tower in the back ground about 600' away.

 Another view of the 150' tower coming up

 Another view

 Another view, those other towers are a few of the eighteen 65' towers circled around the QTH.

 The tower is almost up now but I forgot to take a picture of it when finished, but it looked good.

 This is the bottom three guy's.

 This is the top two guy's.

 The next day we had what they call a micro burst, where in a storm the wind gets up to 100 MPH or so for about ten minutes. Any way my new 150' tower looks like its bent over. I had the 8-element 80-meter sterba curtain up and the transmission line almost done. Now it will take me about 15 days to build a new tower. I had the tower guyed every 30 feet. I think it would have survived if guyed every 20 feet.

 Yes it's broke.

 Another view.

 Another view.

 Another view.

 In place of the broken tower will be a 200' foot tower.  This is the bottom 1/3 of the tower.

 Ready to unload.

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StepIR antenna

SteppIR Antenna

 

 

 

 

Bisbee AZ. StepIR antenna 90 feet high. We have an unusual cloud formation around the sun. The other two vertical elements are part of my 80 meter 4 square.

My wife gave me this antenna for my 80th birthday.

 

This is my second home in Tucson and I am trying to put this antenna up using a gin pole  but I don't have strength to do it, and  it's not going so good so I rented a lift machine.

This lift machine won't move when its up so I had to get it about 20' from the tower, lift the antenna up to clear the brush, then climb down and pull the machine up to the tower with a come along winch.

Here I put the antenna in the top of the tower by hand. Kind of a heavy lift for an 80 year old guy like me but ever thing worked out ok.

Getting ever thing hooked up. The antenna motor control wires, rotator wires and the coax cable.

The 90' tower has five 20' sections.

This is south west Tucson AZ. We have a fair size wash running by so we have a lot gravel for cement projects. This is about 24' off the ground.

Just about done

This is how I raise the tower. When you get it half way up you have to give the drill a rest because it's starting to get a little warm. Using this drill sure beats cranking it up by hand.

Installing my stepper antenna at my second home in Tucson Arizona

W7YRV   Roy in his back yard Tucson AZ.

The little tower on the left, I tried to use it as a gin pole to put the antenna up without using a lift machine but it was too much for me.

Getting the rotator bolts tight.

Installation is finished

Other antennas & stuff

Other antennas and stuff

 Four square antenna with a Comtek Relay control system and 3/4 inch hard line running out to the four   65' towers. For 80-meters this antenna gives you the most for your money.  (4 dBs in four directions)

Six 80-meter and three 160-meter wire beams hung on six towers 120' high. The 80-meter three element wide spaced beams use a common reflector. They have a gain of 9 dBs and the two element 160-meter beams have a gain of 4 dBs. These antennas performed extremity well, but a few months later I decided to move on to bigger and better antennas like big rhombic's.

 A view from my brothers air plane showing my wire antennas and part of my 40 acres.

 Three 1100 foot long rhombics hung on six 120 foot towers, they cover the whole 40 acres. Great antennas in six directions but a year or so later I learned  that you can cut the rhombic in half and reform it to an X and feed it in the center, and you still have the same antenna. This way I can put 9 of these big antennas on 40 acres as opposed to only 3. I built this new antenna and it has a tower in the center and 18 towers around it giving you a really big rhombic every 20 degrees. The best  antenna I ever had.

 This 6 position, 4 deck wafer switch controls the power going to any one of the three rhombic antennas and brings  back the reflected power to the shack's terminator resister.

 I heard a loud hiss and I jumped a few feet thinking it was a rattle snake but it was a Gila monster, you seldom see one in the day time.

 These are the power relays that switch the transmission lines to the antenna.

 This is a tool that I used on my 80 meter sterba curtains. I use a come along to pull it out using a scale to 100 pounds then measure how long it is, this way in the pasture you crank on it till you have the right amount of length. Then you know you don't dare pull it any tighter. You buy these at a ranch or farm store.   

 Putting up the StepIR antenna the hard way, South Tucson Arizona.

 This is south west Tucson Arizona. My first Tucson home.

 

At my second Tucson home I tried to put this antenna up with a gin pole, but I don't have the physical  strength any more so I rented a lift machine.

 This is my rig when I was on the ranch in Maricopa Arizona. My exciter is a TS-850 and the final is home brew  4-1000,that I built in 1957.

1954, on my Dads ranch a few miles north of the Mexican border, my first ham radio station, a globe scout transmitter, 40 watts out put, NC 183-D national receiver, pan adapter and a Heath kit VFO. Also my dad, me and my nephew.

 This commutations receiver was patented in 1903 and  used during World War one. It was a spark gap receiver. Its frequency range was below the broad cast band.

 This was my first communication receiver I had in 1951. An RCA AR88

 My first car, the engine was in pieces and my dad said, if you can fix it you can have it. This was also my first mechanic job and I felt real privileged.

                                                      

You want to build a Cheap 60-foot tower?

The materials include 60 feet of 2-5/8 inch (chain link fence thin wall tubing) that comes in 24-foot lengths and also 24 feet of 1- ½ inch tubing for the gin pole. Also 400 feet of # 12 galvanized wire. (For the guy wires). You can buy this material where they sell chain link fences.

Tools:

1      Come along winch with 70 feet of 3/16-inch cable.

2       Wire welder

3      9 solid black bungee cords (to keep guy wires taught)

4      6 anchor stakes (three seven foot  metal fence posts cut in half)

5      Vice grips

6      6 Eye lets (fencing staples)

7      2 foot of 2-5/8 pipe (Weld to bottom of tower to keep from sinking)

   The best location would be flat ground without buildings, fences and tall trees; otherwise the job is more difficult. The tower should have 2 sets of guys. Lay the tower out in the direction you want to pull it up and attach a pulley on top with a pull rope for pulling up your antenna. Drive three stakes in an equilateral triangle about 25 feet from the base of the tower. One of them will be used to pull the tower up with. Drive two temporary stakes 25 feet out perpendicular to the base. This is your temporary guy points while raising the tower. Drive a stake at the base to keep the bottom of the tower from moving. For the gin pole I drive a two foot 1/2" round metal stake in the ground, then bend it over and then slip the base of the gin pole over it. It acts as a hinge as you pull the tower up. Now lay your gin pole about 10 degrees less than 90 degrees out from the base of the tower. Tie two sets of the tower guys to the temporary stakes. Tie the third set to the top of the gin. Make another set of guys for the gin pole. Attach the pull winch to the pull stake and take out all of the slack. Put a stepladder under the end of the gin pole so you can pull the gin pole up by hand. With one gin pole guy attached to the temporary stake, pull by hand the gin pole to the vertical position and attach to the other temporary stake. You may have to move the stepladder closer to the center of the gin pole to make the pull less difficult when rising the tower you should always use rubber bungee chords on one side of the tower and gin pole to keep the guys taunt. The best kind is the solid black rubber ones about 18 inches long. If the ground is not very level you better check the tension frequently as the tower goes up. There is not much stress on these guys while raising the tower because everything is balanced. It can become unbalanced when the ground is not level or when the wind is blowing hard or a guy wire is snagged on something. Now start pulling the tower up a few feet. If the tower is sagging in the middle, let it down and adjust the guys till it lifts fairly straight. As you are going up watch the bungee chords, if the ground is flat they wont change much, but otherwise they will change a lot. When you get the tower up to about 75 degrees and less if the wind is blowing, move the bungee chords guys one at a time to the back guy anchor. Its better to use at least three chords on each guy wire and don’t stretch these chords too much because if  these chords breaks the tower might fall. If the tower falls, it will fall in the direction it is leaning and some times it folds up and comes straight down assuming a guy wire came loose or something, so stay out at least 35 feet from the base. Also put the stepladder under the gin pole to keep the weight of the gin pole from pulling the tower forward when it gets in the near vertical position. Now when the tower is nearly vertical remove the other guys one at a time and tie them to the other back anchor. Now that the back guys are tied, transfer the tower guy wires from the gin pole to the front anchor. Remove the gin pole and its guy wires. Now you can loosen and tighten guys till the tower is straight up.

    When you pull your long wire antenna, vee beam, rhombic or sturba curtain the down pull wire should not be more than 100 lbs pull, This will handle most wire antennas. If you must pull like two or three hundred pounds you need a stronger tower.  
   If you have to let it down, I recommend cutting it down, its safer, faster and will suffer a lot less damage than if it falls while letting it down. This is because going up you can see a mishap coming but going down, once it starts its too late. To straighten pipe, use a metal cutting saw and cut about half way thru and that makes it easy to bind. When you have it straight enough, weld up the cuts.

     You can use this same procedure with heaver towers. You have to use heavier guy wire and gin poles. I have pulled up 200-foot towers using a 90-foot gin pole all by myself. Having help leads to possible mishaps, so fear not you can do this by yourself and it’s not any where near as dangerous as putting up a large beam antenna. 

      Good luck 73's and good DX from W7YRV, Roy Callison (Age 85), It helps to have a wife that will put up with such extreme and time consuming projects. w7yrv.roy@gmail.com