Raising the 72 Foot Vertical Antenna Mast at W5JGV - by myself!

This is how I managed to raise my 72 foot tall vertical antenna by myself. The entire antenna and guy lines weighs about 110 pounds. It sits on a hinged support which is mounted on a base insulator. The antenna is guyed in 4 directions in a square pattern. The antenna was laid out flat on the ground pointing at the West guy anchor. The guy lines for the North and South sides were stretched out from the antenna and fastened to their respective anchor points. The guy lines to the West anchor point were attached to the anchor point, but the lines were laying loose on the ground. As the antenna was raised, these lines were pulled tight and held the antenna upright. The guy lines that would eventually be attached to the East anchor point were attached to the top end of a 32 foot extension ladder which was set upright and at right angles to the antenna when it is laying on the ground. The ladder was be raised into position by using a 16 foot 2 x 4. A small tractor was used to do the pulling for this project. Everything was calculated out beforehand, and I knew the magnitude and direction of the forces involved during the lift. I had myself positioned during the lift so that I could see the antenna and was well away from where it might fall should it happen to fall while it was being erected. The entire operation went uneventfully, and took only about three minutes longer than the length of this video.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• amateur
• ham
• radio
• antenna
• mast
• guyline
• vertical
• hoist
• w5jgv
• wd2xsh

[hotFusionReaction]

Hey! Out of curiosity, what brand antenna was that?

[W5JGV]

It was home made. I spliced together three sections of 6 inch diameter aluminum irrigation pipe to make the mast.  I also built the special hinged base, which allowed the antenna mast to tilt up, and swing left or right as well as rotate along its axis to keep the guy lines from damaging the mast as it was pulled aloft. The entire antenna less the guy lines weighed less than 90 pounds.

[WE0H]

I was waitin for it to come over and wack the van :-)

Mike

WE0H

/16

[W5JGV]

Yep; I put the van there 'cause it's worth less than the other vehicle!

[goldieboy09]

wow that was really something to watch.i am studyng my technicians book and will take my test in less than 2 weeks-i thought that was difficult.BRAVO.

ill be on 2meters for a while but someday i hope to have a qso w/ you sir.

73,dj

[oldschoolSlyfan]

That was pretty slick!

[CCWSig]

Well that was a hell of a thing! lol Nicely done thanks for posting

[ccopmp]

Gave me some ideas to get myself into trouble. Hahaha

N1XFV

[ccopmp]

Gave me some ideas to get myself into trouble. Hahaha

N1XFV

[MWFrontier]

You should probably be building rockets somewhere...

[5lkk]

Good job Ralph, hope the antenna is working out well for you. Off to watch the pole dancer video that's on the right of the monitor here.

[rocketman6913]

Pure genius !

Excellent and ballsey...

K7DGI