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A subscriber builds his own tower |
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Written by Start a WISP Site Admin
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Wednesday, 22 December 2004 |
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Page 1 of 2 I built my own 60ft tower, it was expensive, hard/dangerous work, and
my wireless ISP that I subscribed to went out of business 6 months
later. I went into knowing nothing, and I'm not sure what I did right
and wrong. Alot of pitfalls along the way. Such as, it's really hard to
climb out of a 5ft deep hole on a wet day.
Heres the long and short of it though ( and if it falls, don't look at me ).
- Pulled the tower off of my parents house. It was there when they
bought it. It's not one of those lightweight ones though, the 10ft
sections probably weigh in at 70lbs or so. Didn't have a gin pole for
this, tied the sections to my brother ( who was harnessed on, rock
climbing harness ), then he would wrap the rope around the standing
tower section he was on, then we would jack them apart. He would pick
it up then not so gracefully let it flip over then lower it down. I
couldn't do this, you need more upper body strength then I had. He was
lifting alot of weights at this point, so he could do it.
- Dug
a hole. 4ftx4ftx 5ft deep. Bottom 1ft gets gravel, drove about 30ft of
rebar into the ground all around it. Set the bottom section of tower
down into that. Made kind of a criss cross rebar pattern. No idea if
that was right or not. Concreted in the bottom section of the tower.
Used about 40 80lbs bags of quickcrete. Cost about $400 plus the mixer
rental ( about $50 ). Still cheaper then the cheapest mixer truck
delivery ( for my area ). Not to mention there is *no* way a mixer
truck could get to where my tower is without a few grand of dirt work.
Oh, dont' forget to level the crap out of the base you bury in
concrete.
- Built a gin pole out of the top rail of a
chainlink fence, some theater clamps ( brother provided again ), and a
little pulley I bought at ACE hardware. It didn't break, so I guess it
was a good plan.
- Lifted each section into place, bolted with new bolts, hosed down the bolt holes with rustoleam (sp) paint.
- Put guide wires ( plastic coated braided steel, about $50 for 100ft,
used 3 rolles ) every 25 feet. Thats 2 levels of guide wires. Home
depot had the turnbuckles and those little clampy things. I just put
the guide wires around the tower legs. Didn't buy those fancy guide
wire plates. People say you have to.
- Bought some steel plate,
had it cut to 1X1X2ft sections. Drilled some holes in it to put rebar
through ( to form a "T" ), so about 8inches sticks out of the ground.
About 4-6 bags of concrete for each guy wire base. I used the 3 guy
bases all together. The top guy wires arn't technically at the right
60' ( or was it 30? ) angle. Owell.
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