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Cobra0020
| | Posted on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 10:42 am: | 
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A Friend Down here in New Orleans Puts up towers for people and he has a whole Crew. I have A 60 Ft Heavy Duty Crank up tower and a white lighting 4 element quad. My Friend said he and his crew would install it for me for around 400-600 dollars. Do yall think that is a good deal. I think that is were i do not have to lay a finger on anything or maybe help out alittle.
Thanks,
Cobra |
Kattracker
| | Posted on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 5:53 pm: |
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Cobra0020,
Sounds kind of high to me. What is he going to do as far as mounting it to the ground?
I hope he is going to install a concrete base, install the tower, antenna, coax and set the swr for that price. And I think for that,...$400.00 should do it if he has a bucket truck.
That is just my opinion.
If I were in your area I would jump on it for $400.00 and do it with a concrete base with re-bar reinforcements driven into the ground below and to the side of the concrete pour.
Kattracker |
Kattracker
| | Posted on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 5:58 pm: |
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Cobra0020,
After reconsidering the fact that you have a crank-up tower, I think even $400.00 is too much.
I figure the tower when lowered is about 20 feet tall. This install would be a cake walk. If I were to do something like that, I would have the customer pay for the concrete and I would do it for $200.00 labor.
Again, just my opinion.
Kattracker |
Cobra0020
| | Posted on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 7:15 pm: |
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I know after Carefull Consideration I have decided to do it my self Because that really is Kind of high. This job Should be Kind of easy. And save me a heck of alot of money.
Thanks,
Cobra0020 |
Ca346
| | Posted on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 7:16 pm: |
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I also have a Lightning 4+ (18ft Boom). Whole antenna and boom weighs less than 20#. Hard to compare costs across the U.S., but here in California I bolted a 50 ft tower (Rohn) together on the ground. Took a few days, but it was MY time (Cheap). I put a 20ft mast into it and the Yaesu rotater. All on the ground. Hired a crane truck (120ft Boom)to lift it onto the bolted conc. foundation. Then I climbed the tower (wearing a safety harness) and he lifted the Quad to me. Bolted it on to the mast in a few minutes. Cost me $137. That included the 1 way travel time. I think he was done in 30 minutes? Might have been longer? Saved me alot of trouble. Course I still had to climb the tower a few times for the antenna adjustments. Plus it is guyed, not a stand alone tower.
So.... I suggest you call a couple crane companies and ask what their charges are? Sounds to me like he might not be too close of a friend?
I could understand the extra cost if it had to be bolted together (10ft) in 5 sections. But since it's a crank-up, all he has to do is put it up on your foundation. Or did that include a 4ftx4ftx4ft conc. foundation? AND... you do nothing? |
Mr_Rf
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 3:52 am: |
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Hey Cobra,
Before you jump right in and hate yourself afterward consider your skills:
1. How much do you know about tower work?
2. Are you mechanically inclined?
3. Do you like to read instructions?
4. How's your back, arms, heart?
5. Can you afford to be out of work rather than a few hundred bucks?
6. How's your homeowners insurance?
7. Does this guy carry any insurance in case he goofs?
8. Do you have "goof" insurance?
9. Are you usually patient or a hothead?
10. Got any experienced, or semi-experiencecd buddies to help you?
Tower work IS NOT a one man job and, even crankups, are among the ten top dangerous jobs around! Even if you have to do the SWR tweaking, and be the one to crank up the final product, it may be worth paying the professional.
Having 20 or so years experience under my climbing belt (and sore back) I can promise you that you are really buying more than you realize. $400 to $600 is CHEAP for such a job if he is providing a turnkey installation. Most professional tower crews charge a mininum of $100 per hour for a "crew". It really sound like you have a good friend who is willing to do you a big favor if he is indeed a "professional" tower monkey!
That's my two cents worth.
Be Safe! |
Pig040
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 10:14 am: |
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I installed my own crankup tower, with the help of one friend. It was not hard, the main thing is that you plan the whole thing out step by step, arrange all your tools, having the right sockets, levels, and all that handy. It took the two of us about 6 hours total including laying the concrete. Dont skimp on the guy wire anchors. We also put extra effort into matching the antenna on the ground. After it went up, it stayed up til I moved a couple of years later. |
Triplecguy
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 12:23 pm: |
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Mr RF is right!!!! I put up a 24 foot tower and had a few friends help me and it took us almost 6 hours from start to finish. It's amzing how heavy all those light sections are once bolted together!!! If you're not positive about your ability to install one, pay a little now instead of a lot later. Have fun and good luck, but please be careful if you tackle it yourself!!!
DAN |
Scrapiron63
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 2:46 pm: |
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Its a lot of work from start to finish, of course most of us do it in our spare time, and that might take several days. All four places I've owned over the last 40 years have had plenty of room so I could use a hinge plate on my towers. That way you can get it all put together on the ground, antenna checked, and then stand the whole thing up. I've got 70 feet of rohn on a hinge plate now, the lift cable is permanently fastened to the tower, then thur a pully about 35 feet up in a big pine tree. I can let mine down by myself in just a few minutes, just hook the tractor to the pull cable, unfasten the guys on the pull side, and let that baby down. Thats why I've messed around with so many antennas over the years, its not much trouble with this rig. scrapiron |
Bigbob
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 5:51 pm: |
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Helped my dad-in-law put up a 40foot tower,10foot mast,rotor and long range tv antenna in one hour using a hinged base and an alise-chalmers tractor,'course the concrete took three days to cure. |
Kattracker
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 7:11 pm: |
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Cobra0020,
Looks like I may be living in the wrong part of the country. If that is the going rate for tower work in my area, I would be rich. After reading other post regarding your tower I must be doing something that others don't.
For example, and I am not trying to be a smart @**
but me and one other guy put up a 60 foot crank-up tower with a PDL-II. I took one hour to dig the hole (4x4x4) and pour the concrete. We let it cure three days. We then erected the tower, installed the beams, taped the coax to the tower and had the swr set and was talking in one hour.
Total time, 2 hours.
I would prefer a crank-up anyday. The secret is to install the antenna when the tower is as low as possible. Put a strong piece of metal through the rungs while you are working to be sure the tower can not drop any lower or you may loose a hand or a few fingers at the least.
After the antenna is on, use a 20 foot ladder and tape the coax as your buddy progessively cranks it up and be to the side and hands clear in case for some reason the sections dropped within itself. Better yet, use the piece of metal and stick through the rungs each time you stop to tape. Incase the tower dropped, it would only drop to the next rung. You would be done before you knew it.
The biggest pain is digging the hole.
Good luck either way,
Kattracker |
Ca346
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 9:41 pm: |
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Kattracker:
I sure could have used your help when I was digging my hole. 4x4x4. Took me a week... Course I only was digging when the area was in the shade... Until about 11AM. And, of course I didn't start until I had 3 cups of coffee, and read the whole paper.... But then retirement is new to me, and time is of NO consequence ANYMORE 
CA346 |
Cobra0020
| | Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 4:31 pm: |
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well guys The guy came and said 600 dollars and he will recable my tower and put a new winch on it for that amount. so i am going ahead and getting him to put it up and about 3 weeks he is going to start. Im so excited to finally going to get my white lighting beams up.
Cobra0020 |
Jesse James
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 12:32 pm: |
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Where can i get a 60 foot crank up tower, and how much will it cost. |
Ca346
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 1:38 pm: |
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Here is ONE of many choices:
www.hamradio.com
The bigger the tower, the heavier the tower, the costlier the tower. Best to find one (tower distributor) near you in your State and pick it up yourself.
Good Luck!
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Dodgeman
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 2:47 pm: |
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Jesse try this site www.glenmartin.com they have some nice towers.CEF 178 |
Ca346
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 5:26 pm: |
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Jesse James:
Part II:
Texas Towers out of Plano, TX sells a wide variety of crankup towers.
Their MA series is the cheapest. 40ft to 85ft. $849 to $5,029.
There must be a better way!! I have a Rohn 50ft fixed tower I bought used. Guy wires at 42ft. paid $350 for it. + $137 for a crane to lift and set it on the foundation.
Now I talked to a guy in OK that said he put up a 30ft fixed by 4 guys gritting their teeth and running a rope over the house roof. He admitted it was a little scary, but it's been up for several years. |
Stepchild
| | Posted on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 1:15 pm: |
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I had a MR-4,Ham-4 rotor on 40ft of tower and guyed with the 10ga Tv antenna guyes.The bottom of the hing plate had three 2" holes cut in it that we drove a T post through each one with a 4X4X1/4"plate welded on the end of the post.Then we pulled the whole mess up with a 2 ton Chevy box truck and it stood for 5 yrs of southwest Arkansas weather with no trouble.Don't ask me how but it did,that was the first tower I ever put up. |
Scrapiron63
| | Posted on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 4:35 pm: |
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Stepchild, I've seen several people just dig a hole beside the house, stand the tower up, fasten it to the house, and fill the hole with gravel or dirt. Know some thats been standing like that for 20 years or better. This 4X4X4 concrete base for a 50-60 ft tower is kinda overkill in my opinion. Thats almost 2 1/2 yards of concrete, over 4 tons. Rohn specs show a 2 X 2 ft round or square hole, 4 ft deep for a 50 ft tower, thats a little over 1/2 yard of concrete. For hinged towers I like about a 3X3X3 pad, that's 1 yard, over 1 1/2 tons, and will anchor it plenty good I think. Just whatever one wants I guess, and too, the type of dirt you have. Some places are really hard to get a redi-mix truck to, and 2 and a half yards of concrete is lots of mixing by hand. scrapiron |
Stepchild
| | Posted on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 8:28 pm: |
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Scrapiron,I've seen a guy back home dig a hole about 2 ft across and 3 ft deep and pour 2 sacks of quikcreate in it then pour about three gallons of water in and mix it with a broom stick then throw the dirt back in to the bottom of the hing plate and call it good.He's got three of them in his yard just like that.One has a MR-4,one with a Maco M-107 on the flat side,and the other has got an A-99 on it.All range from 40-70ft,just the tower.They are all guyed with 1/8th braided cable.I'm with you on the 3x3x3.While I'm here,what do you think about a 4x4x4 pad and 40 ft of rohn 25g free standing with an Imax-2000 on it? |
Poullutionpete
| | Posted on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 9:37 pm: |
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Scrpiron63;
well do you think of putting 9yds. in a 6x6x6
hole for a HDBX Rohn 48ft. tower thats a freestanding tower then ? we got one and it was up for 15years untill we moved to our farm now and we had a hy-gain SDB-6's on top of it and then went to a laser 400 and the wind load was about 12sq. ft.and my tower is rated at 18sq.ft.so
I don't think we did a over kill on our tower setup |
Bigbob
| | Posted on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 11:03 pm: |
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A water well driller up here augered a 12 inch hole 10 feet deep,put in a 12 inch well casing,filled it to within 6 inches of the top with concrete,welded on a hinge plate and put up a 70 foot guyed tower,used 1/2 inch nylon rope for the guys,has been up for 14 years now. |
Scrapiron63
| | Posted on Friday, September 26, 2003 - 9:49 am: |
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Pollutionpete that sounds like a heck of a setup you have. I should have clarified that I was talking about guyed towers, and your right on free standing towers its better to be safe than sorry. No doubt you have plenty of base, the tower would blow over and break before the base gave way. This rohn 25 and similar tower that most of us use was not build to freestand. When I was contracting, I installed some bases for some commercial towers, radio stations, and about 9 yards of concrete is what went under the tower, the bases for the guy cables would have lots more concrete than the tower base. As far as anchoring a guyed tower, like bigbob said, you could just drill/dig a posthole, look at all the big utility poles. I also installed some big flag poles back in my working days, they were at federal buildings and other places, and for some reason the specs called for them to be set in sand. We would install a concrete base, but form a round hole a little bigger than the pole, then stand the pole and pour sand around it. A flange on the pole then slid down and covered the sand. Don't know what that was for unless so the poles could be replaced later without major work, or maybe the sand absorbed vibrations and saved the aluminum from stress at the top of the base. |
Bigbob
| | Posted on Saturday, September 27, 2003 - 7:35 am: |
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In my experience if you use sand use a vibrator to settle the sand,it gets as stiff as concrete just a half inch down.
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