Here is the epilogue for my friend's TX-455 story
The owner hired a structural welder to repair his broken crank-up
tower. He has done the following:
1. He inserted 20 inch reinforcing rods into each of the tower legs.
The drainage was taken into account to prevent the watter from freezing
inside.
2. Additional reinforcing ears were welded on top of the existing ears
and to each of the tower legs.
The last three pictures from the URL link below show the repaired
tower. The work was completed about 6 weeks ago and so far there has
been no problems.
http://dx.fireroute.com/TX455
A big thank-you to everyone who provided assistance via TT reflector and
through private correspondence.
73,
Nick - ve3ey
> I am posting this note on behalf of a friend of mine.
>
> His 55 foot TX-455 US Tower is on the verge of collapsing down. The
> owner just noticed that two out of three legs of his tower just broke
> down. The legs snapped just above the mounting ears where the tower is
> fastened to the "T" mounting plate. We suspect that some 90 km/h wind
> gusts we have had here in Toronto last week may have been a contributing
> factor.
>
> The tower is currently nested and the antennas are still on top of it.
> It is basically holding on only one of the remaining legs and a few
> cross braces. It was installed brand new in 1990 and it had a 2 el GEM
> Qubical Quad installed ever since. In 2003, owner replaced the short
> mast with a 22" cromoly nested about 3" inside the tower and added a
> home made rotary dipole for 30/40 m at about 10 feet above the Gem
> Quad. The dipole is a modified Cushcraft D3W warc dipole.
>
> The pictures of the damage can be seen here. http://dx.fireroute.com/TX455
>
> We are looking for some advice how to remedy this problem. Would there
> be any way to fix this tower short of buying a new one?
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