Adding a Multi-purpose Radio Tower to the yard.
I found this Rohn 55g tower on Craigslist in Washington State.
It was second-hand, but had never been set up and had spent its life in a shed in a backyard.
Since I have several hobbies that can find a home on this tower I decided it was time to set it up.
The engineers at Rohn give pretty specific instructions on hole and rebar size.
Since I'm not a professional hole digger, my version of the hole got a bit bigger than they suggested....
.....but I'm betting it won't fall over for lack of strength.
This is how it looked just before the hole got filled with cement.
Instead of 6 cubic yards of cement it was closer to 10.
That's #7 rebar, pretty close to an inch in diameter.
Once the cement is hard and the forms stripped, we started adding the 3 other 10' sections to the bottom section.
This is done using a "gin-pole". That's the pole that is sticking up above the top of the tower.
It has a pulley at the top and is attached to the side of the tower and allows you to winch up the next section.
It took a while for me to get up the courage to climb all the way to the top.
It still gives me weak knees to climb it.
So now it's time to add things to the tower.
Our flag, a cell phone antenna and a Davis Weather station.
Looks like we have a wild fire kicking up in the hills behind the tower.
I bought this used antenna from a rocket scientist down at White Sands. (Yes really a rocket scientist!)
I decided to rebuild it before I put it up since it's many decades old, but where?
It's too big to assemble in the garage (and get out the door) so I stuck these 2x6s in cement so the boom could lay in them.
One by one the elements were cleaned and rebuilt and added to the boom.
Finally it was done and it was time to put it on top of the tower.
Here we've hooked on to the antenna mast and have it dangling from a rope from the bucket truck.
That's my friend Jeffrey running the hydraulic controls on the back of the truck.
Just on the other side of me is Gary. He's holding a rope that is connected to the boom to keep the antenna from spinning.
(I'm putting off climbing the tower as long as I can.)
My job here was to grab hold of the antenna mast and guide it into a hole at the top of the tower.
It went pretty smoothly even though none of us had ever done this before.
Now it's time to bolt the antenna mast to the rotator.
You can just see Gary holding the ropes to the left of the truck fender.
Meanwhile Jeffrey maneuvers the lift arm away from the antenna.
And it's about now that the wind decides it's time to blow.
By the time this was all done my legs felt like Jello.
The mighty erecting crew!
Jeffrey Greg Gary
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