I picked up a used crankup tower several years ago and had it hauled to my
home. The non-ham seller had promoted it as a US Towers HDX-472, but after
getting it home, I found out it wasn't that tower at all.
This is a 4-section telescoping tower, with a motorized raising system (no hand
winch), and looks like it would be around 70 feet when fully extended. I think
it's a lighter-duty tower than a HDX-472 since this one has a distance of just
20" between the bottom legs.
The construction of the tower is each section having three legs with solid rod
bracing in an "N" pattern (when the tower is horizontal) or a "Z" pattern if
the tower was standing up vertical. It came with a "T" shaped steel base, but
no "Raising fixture" that would allow it to tilt over for service and
raising/lowering.
I've done a lot of searching on the internet and looked at lots of pictures of
ham towers. It doesn't appear to be like any of the Tri-Ex, Tristao, Hy-Gain or
US Towers that I've found so far. I did find one picture of a Tristao tower
that was somewhat similar, but the Tristao appeared to use some much heftier
metal bar material instead of rod material for the horizontal bracing in each
section.
If anyone has an idea of what I have, I'd sure appreciate an email. I'd like to
find the info for getting the necessary specs and paperwork for getting a
building permit, digging the hole for the base and rebar cage construction,
ordering some appropriate J bolts, etc. I don't have a web site, and the list
doesn't accept attachments, but I can send anyone who'd like to see them a few
.jpg pictures of the tower and the motor drive assembly.
The tower came with a HAM-M or similar sized rotor mounted in the top section,
I don't see how it gets removed, which I will need to do since I do have some
brand-new HAM-IV and T2X rotors that could take the place of the one in the
tower that's been out in the weather for some years and probably needs some
major service.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions. Hopefully, this year will see a tower
planted in the yard, and I won't have to keep complaining about having just a
little roof-mounted multiband vertical as my main HF/6M antenna. I'd like to
use this tower to support a 3 or 5-band quad.
Larry
direct email: larryj@teleport.com
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