TOWER INSTALLS & MAINTENANCE

We have been installing and working on cell phone, municipal radio system towers, ham radio towers and more for decades. After many years of working with cranes, bucket trucks ladders and climbing structures so long it was a natural service for us to begin offering. We are an official dealer and installer for the American Tower Company and can get parts for other popular towers such as Rohn Tower. We also remove towers that need to come down for a myriad of reasons unless its just too big or unsafe without equipment we do not have access to but have only had one 160 foot tower the guy wires had been cut and the base was damaged we backed of on to date. The below tower installation was done with American Tower Company components and big enough footing for an 80 foot freestanding unit but owner felt 40 feet was enough once top section and mast brought center of antenna to over fifty-five feet. In our opinion 35 feet is enough for a starter tower, 50 to 60 feet work great and no need to go higher unless able to afford to make the jump to 90 or 100 feet..

A GOOD FOOTING IS IMPERATIVE FOR A SAFE TOWER

The footing is engineered for up to eighty feet freestanding even though owner only wanted forty feet. As a new ham we would rather go bigger than smaller in case as he upgrades from Tech to General and Extra he may want to go higher. We told him when ready to add HF adding two sections for a sixty foot free standing tower plus masts would be an easy upgrade for us to do and would not have to say footing is not big enough or guy wires would now be required. We always over pour our footings once digging holes and pouring concrete. Notice we installed four eight foot ground rods with footing which were all bonded together and then to each leg of the tower.

MAKE SURE ALL PARTS & HARDWARE CAME OFF DELIVERY TRUCK

WE ATTEND TO EVERY DETAIL WITH REDUNDANCY

We used a name brand jumper to attach the Andrew Microwave Heliax to the antenna as the jumper has factory installed connectors on both ends that are highly resistant to water ingress. We then sealed each connection point with an Andrew 221213 Weather Proofing Kit which we know whether its been on for a couple of days or a couple decades it is miserable to remove and still water resistant if installed properly. There is a specific tape for prewrapping connector before the butyl rubber sealant wrap to aid in removing the sealant if ever need to change something and we reccomend the prewarp befor the sealant then there is an outer tape for wrapping the sealant to keep it clean and better protected. Once this fuses its almost if done correctly, it will never leak in our experiance and no water in your conectors ensures long life and good signal. While we showed four ground rods earlier in final photo you nly see three ground cables from tower because it only has three legs. All four rods are bonded together underground using two runs of #2 grounding copper then tied to the arresro box at entry point of building then tied to connector box in shack with a ground connector for later needs and tied to the entire structures electrical ground to eliminate any chance for a difference in potential that could attract stray impulsest

TOWER IS COMING TOGETHER WITH FINAL DETAILS BEING INSTALLED

The first box pictured on the left is to hold lightning arrestors or surge protectors whatever term you prefer at entry point to structure. We normally prefer Alpha Delta glass discharge tube arrestors as we used here with about fifty feet of name brand Andrew LDF4-50A Heliax Coaxial Feedline from aresstor box to the top of the tower for the VHF/UHF antenna. Heliax has very low losses and the longest in field service life of any feedline commonly available. From the arrestor box to in shack connection box we used Times Microwave LMR 400 feed line as it had flexiblity needed for the job, low losses in the VHF/UHF range and since protected in the wall weather would not be an eventual issue for this section of coax. Picture on far right is mounted under the bench radios are going on second floor of building. We went ahead and totally prewired the shack so all owner had to do was screw a jumper from his radios to the box and plug them up and was ready to transmit. The third photo is a bit fuzzy but shows the Comet GP-6 VHF/UHF antenna is about as perfect as could ask for measured at the bench with an MFJ-269D Antena Analyzer with same length jumper that will be needed for the radio. We can do as little or as much as the client wants. For many we even connect the radios and test everything so its just turn the radio on and press the "push to talk" switch.

ALL BUTTONED UP UNTILL OWNER UPGRADES TO GENERAL