Thanks Jeff,
Your reasoning sounds a lot like mine when I first decided I wanted a
crank-up. Unfortunately, "the best laid ..... " -
I did come up with more reasons to justify the rigid Trylon:
1) If I make my initial selection from the middle range of one of their
strength catagories, I can 'easily' extend the height later by just adding
sections (sort of like the Rohn world).
2) I can now afford a strength catagory that leaves NO doubt about how much
spare carrying capacity it has.
3) No need for the cable oiling, inspection, and replacement rigmarole.
4) No need to make sure the tower is down before going somewhere.
5) No permanent wind-watch stress built into my routine.
Tom at Force 12 called yesterday and we were talking about installing
antennas on fixed towers - he recommends a temporary or permanent electric
winch position at the top of the tower (3 or 4 hundred bucks) to make the
job easier (and probably a whole lot safer, too). I already have the a good
safety belt, so I'll probably do the first installation with help from a
local pro.
Thanks again and 73,
Frank - W0ECS
you wrote:
>Say Frank,
>
>That's an interesting approach, and it sounds like an economical answer
>to your quandry.
>
>The only thing I can add is that, here at my place, we summarily drop
>and tilt the hdx572mdpl to work on antennas whenever we like. We have
>developed a method over the years of building the antennas and mounting
>them FROM THE GROUND, so it is rare that we have to climb it.
>
>I currently have installed a KLM 40M4 (40-el 40m) with 42 foot beam and
>a KLM KT34-XA 16 feet above that. All installed from the safety of the
>ground. On the few occasions that we've had to do some tuning or
>maintenance, we simply lowered the whole thing, tilted her over, and
>removed sections until we could get to the most likely source of the
>problem. It's easy.
>
>I remember during one contest when a coax line somehow turned into a
>water hose during a heavy rainstorm. There was water all over the shack.
>We took a break, ran out to get a new coax line from a local shop,
>dropped and tilted the tower and easily replaced the line. Took 2 hours,
>but we were done (and wet). You can't do that if you need to rely on
>professional climbers. It was messy, but we did it, and were able to get
>back into the contest without missing too many beats.
>
>The only time we climbed to make an install was when we added the KLM
>KT34-A (the little one) to the side of the tower, fixed to Europe. It
>was an afterthought installation, but it could have been done while
>standing on the ground too, obviously. I happened to have at the time a
>good team of willing climbers, so we did it this way.
>
>In sum, don't let the climbing issue dissuade you from the crank-up.
>There may be other valid reasons to dismiss it, but not because you'll
>have to climb it - because you really don't have to.
>
>73 de Jeff K2KV
>k2kv@netusa.net
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