[Tower-Speak] Tower raising winch motor help

[Todd Bigelow - PS]

"Walter J. Slazyk" wrote:

> Mark,
>
> I could answer your question with a single line and a website but thought
> you might enjoy the personal history behind my own experience. If not, skip
> my BS and drop to the bottom line. hihi For what it may be worth, I use a
> "vintage" EZ-Way 65' tower with a add-on rotor head section and bit of steel
> pipe to hoist my 24' boomed, 4-Element Quad in the air. In 1995 when I
> purchased this old tower from W2VO for $550 (famous 160 meter DX man) it was
> rusting, beat looking and completely in parts as well as being equipped with
> the boat-trailer type hand winches for hoisting the 3 vertical telescoping
> sections and a winch for the tilt-over function. I totally ground this beast
> down to bare metal and used naval jelly to melt off the rust and cold
> galvanized then painted with silver chrome paint.

<snip>

Walt -

I had an EZ-Way tower also, the smaller one with only 2 sections and the
'WonderPost' for anchoring it in ground without concrete. And I had many of the
same issues as you had. I stripped the entire thing with a power drill and wire
brush, the primed it, then painted it with industrial silver spray paint. What a
job for 2 sections, I can't imagine doing 3! That clever little tilt-over hinge
on mine was pretty sloppy, so a friend who does metal work tightened it up for
my with a new pin. Same lifting/tilting arrangements too - a pair of hand
winches, one like a boat winch and the other a long tube with a crank.

Overall it's a great little tower, but it sure is heavy! Couldn't get the
Wonderpost as deep as I would've liked due to ledge, so I piled dirt over it and
filled around it. It never budged. About 9 years ago I traded it to a friend but
he's never come to pick it up. It's still well-anchored in the hill behind my
folks' place.

Now I have a much larger, 3-section tower also older steel, made by Tristao(?).
Unfortunately it had only three small pieces of channel iron to hold it to the
base, and we couldn't get those loose when we moved it so it is 'baseless' at
this time. Once I get it installed though, I'd very much like to put a winch on
the side for raising and lowering it from the house. Fortunately it will only be
about 25 feet away, so hand-cranking isn't a real problem. As you say, it's more
about watching the weather.

Good stuff, just wish I had more time!

73, Todd/'Boomer'  KA1KAQ