WB4IUY's Random Blog: September 2017

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Tower Work, 9/27/17

I had time to climb the tower and do a bit more work before dark. I got the rotor mast installed, set the height of the mast so as to not vertically load the rotator, locked the thrust bearing inner race to the mast, slipped a home brew rain/ice skirt in place over the thrust bearing, and the pulled the rope back down the tower for the next task.

Rotator mast installed into the tower top, working on the ice/rain shield. I didn't have this for the first 23 years of use, and it would get water in the top of the bearing and freeze up every year...

Top thrust bearing now has a shield to help keep ice and rain out...

Looking down the torque arm on the top NE guy wire.

A better view of the torque arrestor in use on the top guy wires.

Rotator locked to the mast and ready to get busy!

Looking up the tower to the mast that will soon be supporting the rotatable antenna array.

The sun was setting on me again, while I was up the tower... time to climb down!

A 4.0 zoom of the tower top, just before dark.

Dave WB4IUY
http://www.WB4IUY.net

Monday, September 25, 2017

Tower work, 9/25/17

Wow, I'm on a roll...got another load of items done on the tower today. Getting close to raising some antennas...yipee!!! I can't wait, I've been using low altitude wire antennas for the last year, and totally off of many bands since my tower came down in April 2016. Peace out from the bottom of the last section of tower...

I didn't get the guy wires secured on the tower last night... night fell and I got the south guy tangled up in an 80' oak tree. The wind wasn't blowing, so I gave up for the day. We started back at sunrise this morning... got the south guy straightened out, tensioned all of the guys, got the rope clamps installed, and all was secured and good to go. Nothing to worry, if a storm blew in...

This is the elevated guy point for the NE lower guy wires...

A pic of the tower from our front yard, with the tower top installed, torque arms deployed, and guy wires attached and tensioned.

A pic of the NW guy wire anchor point for the top guy wire...

A pic of the southern guy anchor point for the top guy wire.

I got in a little more tower work before dark... I lowered the gin pole mast down in the mount, raised the gin pole mount to the tower top, pushed the mast back up and got it ready to raise the rotor mast up and into the top of the tower for the rotatable array. I then pulled the rope back down to the bottom of the tower, ready to raise the rotator mast at sunrise. Here a few pics from the end of the day...

A pic from abt 110', looking to the east...

A pic from abt 110', looking to the south...

A pic from abt 110', looking through the tower to the west...

A pic from abt 110', looking to the northwest...

Peace out from 110', top rotor mast thrust bearing seen in the RH side of the pic...

A pic from abt 100', looking through the tower to the northwest...

A pic from abt 100', looking to the north...

Sunset, 9/25/2017, from about 110'...

Looking up at the tower from the front yard, gin pole move up and mast extended, ready to lift the mast...

At the end of this day, a little Booker on ice to relax :-)

Dave WB4IUY

http://www.WB4IUY.net

More Tower Work, 9/24/17

Well, it's been 2 months since I've had time to work on my tower. I got a little time this afternoon to do more tower work, so I tried to make the most out of it. I decided to stop the tower build at 100', and get the guy wires dropped, so as to get the antennas up before winter. The first image is a crappy cell phone video, it does zoom in a bit near the end.

Next, here's a batch of pics from the tower and ground. I got the top section set in place with the rotator, top thrust bearing, and pulled up all guy wires in the process. It was heavy, but it's now in place and awaiting me to tension the guy wires first thing in the morning.

Looking up the tower, the tool bucket is at the 70' point.

Looking down the tower from about 50'. Beautiful afternoon to be doing tower work!

A shot of the tower section being hoisted up the tower. It's at about 70' in this pic...

Another shot of the tower section being hoisted up the tower. I pulled it up with the rotator, top thrust bearing, torque arms, and guys wires already attached. it was heavy, but nothing my wife with her lawn tractor couldn't handle :-)