Small tower section drawing
Simple Two Section Tower

Small Tower Section Drawing - Legs
This is a fairly simple drawing of a two section wind up tower. It would not support anything other than a dipole or VHF antenna due to the small inner section. Allowing for a small gap between sections for movement and a reasonable sized bracers. The leg diameters becomes just a matter of symmetrical sizing, using standard steel pipes.

Large tower Section Drawing
Five Section with Rotator base Plate

Large Five Section Tower with Rotator Base Plate
This drawing (plan view quarter section) starts with the inner section first. The rotator base plate was drawn to scale with a little extra room around the base. Tower runs drawn next and a leg at each intersection. With the exception of a small gap each run just clears the next section leg tube. Again the size of each leg seems to become a progression of a much larger size. The leg tube size on the sixth section become enormous. One way around this escalating problem is to use high grade industrial steel, thereby reducing the diameter sizes somewhat. Making such a monster tower under local fabrication was quickly abandoned.

Tower leg section drawing

Large Tower Five section Leg Drawing.
This is the left section of the crank up tower, showing the leg tube stock. Note that the horizontal bracers (tower steps) start at at 15 inches and the 5th outer section has become 38 inches wide, center to center. Like wise it can be seen that the first section leg tube diameter is one inch, the filth section is over two and a half inches. It is surprisingly when using this model to note that the final section diameter, and section width, is dependant on the first section rotator plate size. Therefore there is a direct relationship from one section to the next.

The first section having to be strong enough to support a reasonable sized antenna system at 100 foot, sets the foundation for the next outer section, and ultimately the final section size. Design cannot be done from the outside to inside. An important factor is safety, in the above drawing it can be seen that the filth section leg tube has reached 2 inches. The load and weight that this section supports is enormous, and the tube wall becomes very thick and heavy.

Tower Section Drawing

This is the right side of the tower section and shows the design measurements of tower runs, clearance distance between runs and corresponding distance (space) between tower leg sections. Taking off the measurement as shown, the distance between the fourth and filth leg is 1.6 inches where the bracer distance is only half inch. Without special tooling and welding jigs seems to be a reasonable clearance where welding warps would not cause tower section jamming
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