Tom wrote:
<< ...snip ... I use old Big Grips wrapped part way for my wire pullers.
Cheap and easy. Tom N4KG >>
Great tip, Tom. This is exactly what I have done. I salvaged a bunch of
grips from an old tower removal job I helped with. I put a band of colored
tape on them so they would never be confused with new ones. Three wraps,
leaving the tails free, provides more than enough grip for pretensioning.
For pretensioning, I have found that you can just put a hammer handle or
heavy stick through the loop of the temporary grip on the guy cable and just
lean back at the steepest angle you can make to apply the tension. If you
pull directly toward, and in front of, the final anchor position, another
person can grab the tail of the guy you are tensioning, make it up in the
permanent grip to the turnbuckle, and retain nearly all the pretension.
Final adjustments to plumb the tower can be made with the turnbuckles as you
apply full guy tension.
For a temporary attachment to an anchor rod, I use an single, old Rohn mast
clamp that I picked up at a hamfest for $1! For their intended use, two mast
clamps let you clamp one vertical mast (or vertical antenna base) to another
vertical member. The bolts were bent a little and there was paint on it, but
so what? I cut of the excess bolt length to save some weight and
straightened the bolts.
I clamp one set of saddles together at the bolt heads to form a place to
hook the come-along. I remove the outer saddle plate from the other end and
clamp this end to the anchor rod, providing enough side standoff that there
is plenty of clearance to rig an equalizer plate assembly.
For those that don't know what a mast clamp is, imagine two long bolts with
2 sets of formed saddles, and intermediate nuts in between the saddles.
There is a picture of one on the last page of Rohn's online brochure (PDF
format) at:
http://www.rohnnet.com/rohnnet2001/catalog/brochures/GTRTPbrochure1.pdf
Although there is a nice, online Rohn catalog at:
http://www.rohnnet.com/rohnnet2001/catalog/Menu/main.html ,
I could not find this clamp assembly in it, and I don't have my paper
catalog handy. Anyone know the part number for this clamp?
--...MARK_N1LO...--
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