Well, this past week found me at KB5CW’s Ridgeway, SC QTH. Simple job really, just 50-ft of Rohn 45G, with a little Mosley up top. I should have known better…
Doug had installed his own base. And he was following the Rohn guidelines for using house brackets–two of them, one at about 20-ft and the second at 38-ft (luckily he lives in a three story house!). But…most folks do not realize that when using these brackets, that the brackets then drive or determine the base location! His base was not quite square to the house; it was “off” about 1/2-inch on one side. So…this meant that not only did I have to figure out some way to lift and hold the bracket in place on to the side of the house, but then using my other two hands, check the bracket for plumb and then mark the holes where I’d be drilling through his house walls. After the first one (which took me, well, seemingly forever), I figured out a way to use a hunk of 2X4 & some bungees & hold the second one in place. That went much faster. And then, because he did not use the brackets to determine the base location, each bracket arm had to be drilled so the clamps would fit on the tower legs. Do you think we could find a super sharp bit to go through that steel? Not that day. I finally give up & bought new ones to bring the next day.
Then the top section simply would not go on, despite my filing the slag off the legs, etc. Finally got it dropped in to place, only to find Rohn (or DXE) had not included the leg bolts…ojoy. Anyway, I brought some the next day & we moved on. Only to find that now, the accessory shelf did not/would not fit. Either the tower siderails were slightly undersized, or the shelf was slightly oversized, but in any case, beating it into position forced the shelf itself into a bow, certainly not suitable to bolt a rotator on to. So, I took it to my fab shop & they cut it apart & re-welded together, losing a 1/4-inch. It fit perfectly. Then we discovered the 10-ft mast he’d purchased was really only 9-ft long! So, that meant another trip back down there with a suitable mast.
Other than these few trials ‘n tribulations, this install was a piece of cake.
Doug’s right on Lake Wateree. Literally. Nice little dock where he says you can cast out & catch crappies, etc.
1293 comments in the contact file this morning. Almost all of them spam apparently, although a few serious requests. Asking KA9FOX to change the structure of that link, perhaps we can eliminate so much spam.
stay tuned…the queue is large & growing daily…
