60 Ft Universal Aluminum Tower:

My wife Pat and I, put this tower up in August of 2001. I had purchased a used 50ft tower from a ham in Indianapolis, IN and then added a used 10ft section purchased from another ham in Minneapolis. The base section is 30" across and 7 cubic yds of concrete anchors it to "Mother Earth".

The resulting tower is rated at 16sqft at 80mph and is 60ft high. The antennas atop the tower are as follows:

432 Mhz -- K2RIW 19 element yagi at 68ft

1296Mhz -- Directive Systems 45 element loop yagi at 66 ft

222 Mhz -- Cushcraft 220B 15 element yagi at 65ft

144 Mhz -- Cushcraft 13B2 13 element yagi at 62ft

902Mhz -- Directive Systems 33 element loop yagi at 61ft (3/07 Temporary)

50Mhz ---- Cushcraft A50-5 5 element yagi at 60ft

All feedlines are individual and are Andrew LDF 1/2" hardline except for the 50Mhz yagi which uses RG8 foam. Rotating loops and jumpers are 9913.

Dipoles and inverted Vees for 80, 40 and 20 meters are also supported by the tower.

Hinged Base:

Universal talks a lot about "assembling the tower/ antennas and then walking it up". Well, working alone 30ft of the tower was all I could handle. The rest was pulled up and set with the help of a gin pole. The aluminum sections are very light weight compared to the Rohn 25G sections that I am used to working with. The horizontal braces are at times a bit far apart for comfortable climbing, but still beat the "x" braces of a Rohn BX/HDX series for climbing and working on.

Our cat Gizmo has to check things out and be sure that dad doesn't do anything dumb!

Money Down A Hole:

For the previous towers (Rohn 25G's) I had always hand mixed the concrete. But at age 60 and looking at 7 cubic yards of concrete the local "ready mix" was called and they filled the hole a lot quicker than I could of. They also got rid of $307 quicker than I had for a while.

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