October 2009 - the trees must come down... 

In the Fall of 2009 I finally had the time and funds needed to attempt cranking down the tower so we could replace the damaged X2200A antenna. There was a problem however, several trees had grown from 1993 to 2009 that were now in the way. These trees had grown considerably over the years and were directly in the way of the towers "path" when tilting it over for maintenance.

Back in 1993 all of the trees with relatively small so Dad and I were able to clear a path for the tower by ourselves. Now in 2009 this was no longer possible as the trees had grown to well over 80 feet tall. I needed to find a professional to help.

 (click on image to enlarge)

I was lucky to find a tree service crew that was right here in town, after discussing what I needed done they agreed to stopped by one afternoon after finishing a big job in the neighborhood. They were able to climbed up the trees, and cut them down piece by piece leaving all the wood on the ground wherever it fell. This saved me a lot of money and worked out very well.

 (click on image to enlarge)

November 2009 - Clearing all the wood...

Then Bruce KD1BE and his friend Jim came up to Lincoln a few weeks after the tree crew, they cut up all the trees, and hauled everything away for Bruce to burn in his wood stove...  

 (click on images to enlarge)

Bruce sent me a few photos after he got the load of wood home and split it all up... 

 (click on images to enlarge) 

Once the trees were cleared out of the way, and I was preparing to drop the tower down to replace the damaged antenna, I noticed that the three main mounts had rusted badly. These photos were taken in November 2009 while Bruce and Jim were cutting up all the trees.

 

 (click on images to enlarge)

This halted all work until a solution to get the tower tilted down safely could be figured out. 

After several unsuccessful attempts trying to hire a commercial crane to come in and lower the tower I decided to try reinforcing the three main mounts at the base and just using the large screw drive and tilt base to drop the tower down for repairs. I purchased three of the large 1 inch anchor bolts like the ones embedded in the concrete base and used them to reinforce the rusted mounts. My plan was to secure the long bolts into the tilt base and then use multiple clamps to tie them to the three legs of the tower.

Back to Tower History Home Page

North 80 Foot Repeater Tower Main Page

East 38 Foot Repeater Tower - West 48 Foot VHF / UHF Tower

Return to the KA1RCI Repeater Network Home Page

This page was last updated on 11/07/2010 and it has been viewed times.

Send mail to [email protected] with questions or comments about this web site.

Copyright 1995-2010 Steven M Hodell

Copyright in these pages, in the screens displaying the pages and in the information, materials and other content contained in this web site is owned by Steven M Hodell unless other wise indicated and is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and treaties. The information, materials and other content of this web site may not be copied, displayed, distributed, downloaded, licensed, modified, published, reposted, reproduced, reused, sold, transmitted, used to create a derivative work, or otherwise used for public or commercial purposes without express written consent.