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Time
to erect the tower. I temporarily attached four splice
plates to the base legs as guides for the first section of tower.
They needed to be removed later to add the inside plates, but
this makes positioning the tower much easier.
I
met the crane operator on the road down the hill and gave him a ride to
the lot in my truck so he could check it out ahead of time. His
biggest concern was simply whether or not he could make it up the steep
hill, but as you can see he was able to do so.
Gary,
K9RX, lives about thirty miles from me but wanted to come out and watch
the proceedings. He got more than he bargained for, though, and
ended up providing invaluable assistance in putting up the tower.
It was a pretty windy day and I doubt I could have gotten the
tower up without him.
The crane operator chose to set up in the driveway below the tower instead of on the road above it ... it was flatter there even though it meant he'd have to extend the boom further. Here Gary and I confer with one of the crane company owners on how to lift the sections into place, and debate whether the gusty winds that day (which I later discovered had reached peaks as high as 60 mph per my recording anemometer) would even allow the crane to operate. We concluded it should be okay.
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