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[TowerTalk] tower tips

To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] tower tips
From: ke3q@msn.com (RICHARD BOYD)
Date: Tue Feb 11 18:01:58 2003
To add to the others:

  1.. "ratcheting box wrenches" are slick.  Works like a socket wrench but 
solves the need for deep sockets quite often.  Respected name brand ones may be 
worth the extra cost; my cheap ones sometimes slip.
2.  A few extra carabiners and slings can be helpful to have in the bucket.

3.  "work platforms" for Rohn 25 or 45/55 -- and perhaps they're available for 
other towers -- can pay for themselves if you're going to be working at one 
level on the tower for very long.  Greatly add to the comfort of your feet.

4.  An extra pair of gloves in the bottom of the bucket can be helpful, just 
like people have mentioned extra hardware and tool items.  Often I have to take 
gloves off to manipulate something small, and sometimes have dropped a glove 
and it can get pretty cold climbing down if it's wintry weather.

5.  Using a plastic bucket for tools and parts has been mentioned.  They're 
everywhere and I've used them too, but.when they get a little old the plastic 
can get brittle and they can break away from the handle and fall to the ground. 
 On some of them the handle can pull loose, especially when loaded pretty 
heavy.  And, since they don't have "give," they can snag on the tower when 
hauling it up or down, dumping the contents (that's happened to me too).  So, 
put a canvas tower workers' bucket on your birthday present list.  They solve 
most of the problems that plastic buckets have.  As I recall, they're not 
terribly expensive.

6.  The so-called "PVRC mount" or "tilt mount" can really help in installing 
yagis, making it possible to put up the boom first, then each element one at a 
time, etc.  I did a 3-element 40 on 48' boom, fullsize elements, this way solo. 
 It also makes maintenance, such as reaching a feedpoint that's far away from 
the mast and tower or replacing bent or broken element tips, etc. much easier, 
can save you the trouble of lowering the antenna to the ground or getting a 
bucket truck, etc.

Not that I'm the expert.  I'm not; far from it.  But, I've done a lot of my own 
work, most of my own work, for the last 39 years (since I was 12) with, 
basically, no "antenna/tower elmer" for most of that time, so there was a lot 
of "make do" learning along the way.

73 - Rich, KE3Q  
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