Wow, man, I guess I been doing it wrong ever since
I found out that climbing up and down a single tower
section two or three times to hang and unhang the gin
pole from the tower leg was a Royal pain in the ass ,
not to mention time wasted retracing steps up and down
the tower.
BTW, if a 12 ft. long gin pole (mine is the same
length also), that weighs 20 lbs (mine is @ 27) can
handle a 20 ft. section of Rohn 65 tower then I must
be some monkeys uncle. Rohn recommends using sections
of 25 as a gin pole , some of which are hinged for
ease of installation (this method is widely used by
most tower crews). Even then , the Rohn 65 is heavy
enough to put a pretty good bow in the rohn 25 gin
pole configuration. Rohn 65 weighs in over 200 lbs per
section, for early models that were made with tubelar
legs and over 300 lbs. for the later solid rod legs.
=M
Anyway I'm starting to digress. my method leaves the
gin pole fully extended for obvious reasons, and I
loosen or tighten the clamps as I climb up or down to
the next section to be worked with. Simply enough, I
tie a semi-permanent loop in the end of the pull rope
with a long enough loop to pass the rope under the
top tower rung and over the top of the tower leg to be
pulled on. this saves a lot of time tying and untying
the rope, a steel carabiner or snap hook works wonders
also. any how, I copied my gin pole leg clamp on the
same lines as the IIX system except that I made it
about 2" shorter. his original design which hasn't
changed , works great on Rohn 20 but is damn near
useless on 25 ( remember 25 has a closer rung spacing
the 20 hence the clearance problems when trying to get
between the rung on the corners.
The gin pole bracket works best when installed with
the pole to your right and the clamps to your left
with the open part of the clamp facing you and the
hinges facing away. I can install and remove the gin
pole fairly easily. You will not be able to just grab
it and swing it out because of the diagonal tower
rungs, but you can tilt it out at the top alsmost to
arms length, then lift and twist it in the same motion
to istall or remove the clamp. If done correctly, the
clamp should lock itself in to the point where the
diagonal brace makes contact with the tower leg at the
bottom of the diagonal (the "V" part). To save on
making mutiple trips up and down a single section, I
loosen and open the clamp while at that location the
if going down to next section, I use the hand over
hand method to lower to the next section and hook it
around the leg using the open part of the clamp to
suspend it on the leg, till I get down to that lower
location then clamp it off and work with that section
. If going up to top of next section, then I loosen
and open the clamp making sure it stays open, then
climb up and disengage the gin-pole clamp from the leg
and pull it up , hand over hand and set it in place. I
do not remove the rope from the attaching point until
i am ready for the next section. this saves multiple
trips also. By leaving the rope attached, it
lowers/raises or pays itself out when going down/up
with the gin pole, which means it is already in
position for the next section when you are ready.
"Damn", I just wrote a script for a how-to video,
and i guess i could take a video camera with me on the
next job I do and make a movie of it.
Anyhow , to each his own concept, main thing is ,
"DO IT SAFELY" and if possible timely.
"Video coming SOON, to a Hamfest near you !!!
Tyrone / N5XES
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