Sept
21, 2002: TOWER DAY!
N0RQ/KC5POV Tower Page 5
Sept
21, 2002:
TOWER DAY!
(And just to prove I have a great wife, this day was our 17th anniversary, and she gave full approval for the scheduling of this! Maybe it's just because she wanted to get on 6 meters..... well, maybe not.)
It was a beautiful day for towering -- mild temps, very slight breeze, pretty
blue sky.
Nervous, nervous I was.
It didn't break. It didn't bend. Crane op said it weighed about 800 pounds, which is about what we expected.
3 straps were attached 1/3 of the way down, per Trylon recommendation.
Well, this part was challenging.
Sometimes it is a little tricky to get one Trylon section into another, even on the ground where you can wiggle them around.
It took a while to get all 3 leg pieces inside the base pieces. We ended up using a very heavy duty strap that the crane op had and put it around the bottom of the hanging portion of the tower. We cranked it tight, which speezed the legs just a little -- just enough that we could convince the 3rd leg to go in (with a little help from a sledge hammer).
Frankly, I can't imagine putting up one of these things with a gin pole, one section at a time. Getting them together can be a bear!
But we did it, got the bolts in, and then it stood by itself.
Mike,
W8CM, did a large majority of the work this day.
He was a HUGE help in this whole project!
