For years I have wanted my own radio tower for me to climb and play with. I was out at the farm with my old boss and saw and an abandon tower on the hillside caught my eye. It was an 18 ft. 25G Rohn, sadly leaning about to fall over.
After some bargaining with the owner, it was mine, all I had to do was haul it off.

With some help from Michael, my brother who just happened to be driving truck that day and had his tools in his truck, we took the tower down and prepped it so I could load it up and take it home the next time I brought my truck out.

A week later I got the tower loaded up in my truck and hauled it home.

Well, the wife and I bought a house, the company I worked for moved to a new building, things were very busy for almost 6 months before I ever got back to the tower. Finally this winter I got going on it again and called my brother for some help to get it rigged up in my back yard. We started by buying 20 ft. worth of 1.5 inch square steel tubing to build the base with. After almost smoking my drill, we got all of the holes drilled and the base plate assembled.

For the next couple of weeks after work and weekands, I dug the holes in my backyard and gathered all of the required hardware for guy wires and anchoring. At each of the four corners of the base we bolted concrete blocks to keep the base from moving. The blocks were buried almost 24 inches and bolted to the base using grade 8 bolts.

We did our best to dig deep enough that the base would actually be underground and the mower would go right over it with no problems.

I also guyed the tower granted its only an 18 foot tower, if its guyed I can climb it and I could install a wind turbine if I wanted. I mounted the guy wires to my car port, clothes line, and buried another concrete block in the ground.

Finally, after all of the cables are taught, and everything was secure, I climbed the tower and got a long awaited picture.

Within hours of having the tower up I put a weather station on it and put my Sirius antenna on it.
I also secured the tower to the shack, so there are three totally independent items keeping the tower up. The base along can hold the tower up with me swinging on it back and forth, the guy wires also can hold the tower up, if both of those fail the tower is also chained to the shack. So the likelihood of the tower crashing down is extremely un-likely. And even if it did, it won't hit anything except my shack (Its not long enough to reach any of the neighbors or the house)

Call me nerdy if you want, but for Christmas I decked out my tower with christmast lights during the Holidy season.


Complete with a flashing star on top!