It stands!

Well it is up and has one (1) antenna on it for now…
“Up with one antenna on top. What next?”]

Ground elevation here is about 1003ft ASL. The tower is 46ft to the rotator and then a 5 foot mast in that to the base of the Diamond X-50 – dual band antenna (4.5 db gain on 2mtr). in total that would be 51 ft. to the base of that antenna. I think it will now peak over the hill to the East of me… I live in a hole (sort of). It appears I have real good distance to the west, and north but to the South and East I was severely Challenged!… At times yesterday this top antenna was hearing the APRS-digi in Tulsa and Pawhuska? maybe it was a bit more conditions? will take time to be sure.

After multiple steps back I finally got it winched up Saturday (during a non-windy day). Problems:
1. Always double check your load. – My original plans were for the tower to only extend 20 feet beyond the raising stub… not 35… so my lever arm was much larger and the winch I had originally was way too small. Had to make a trip to OKC and pick up a 5500lb winch vs. the 3000 lb. one I had bought locally. There is a lot of difference in the ability of the two? Anyway the new one pulls fine with out “groaning” so much. The 3000 would pull it but that was without any extra weight from antennas and it sure was “groaning” in the effort.
2. Make sure your mounts and spaces are large enough for the next size bigger equipment as you will always stress it… I had several other small problems, first with the bigger winch the mounting plate was not large enough – I had to fabricate a plate that would attach to the original mount area and be large enough for the new winch.
extra winch plate between original mount and new winch. “]

The plate is held to the old mount by 4 bolts two into the winch itself and two from the original holes in the smaller winch mount…

next the off-set the welder put into the top pulley was too small , even for the small winch… once you have the hook or link or what every you use to attach the cable to the tower it did not have enough room to pull up tight.

not enough offset room for cable attachments

Next, it was obvious that we needed to pull on the tower from much farther up the tower than at the 10 ft. level so I had to get another pulley mounted about 20 ft. up the tower. This did two things, it lessened the lever arm pull made it easier on the winch from ground level pull up to the 30deg level, but when it pulls up tight the cable has a bad double bend in it.

mounted 20 feet out on the tower for easier pull at start.”

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bend in cable and the eye-bolt for attachment of end of cable.

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the bend and the eye bolt little different angle”

At this point that will have to be the case but is not a big problem as their is very little pull on the cable at the near upright position it is more a stabilizer at this point. I also had to put in a round ring bolt at the top to hook the cable in so it can slide from horizontal to vertical with the hook and not put anything in a pinch point.

But the thing is up and working – waiting on strong winds to make sure it stays up…. ha!… this is what it looks like.

From out front of house showing difference from original on roof of shop.”

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not much up there yet.”]

My plans are to put up a log periodic for VHF/UHF (will be the only beam on this thing), probably have to put up guy wires to the top somewhere to stabilize it as I will also be putting up a 160 meter Windom at about the 40 ft. level. and I will most likely put up one more dual band antenna at that level as well as a small TV antenna in that area for my shop TV… I had thought I would pull down the antenna on the roof but may leave it up for awhile until I determine how this works.

Off to the next project…?