What is a gin pole?
Why use a gin pole to do tower work? How do you use it? Well, lets talk about it.
The pictures right will give you an impression of my homebrew ginpole. With remote control for safety and easy to disconntect the hardware.
Only one person can do the job! The foremost consideration when performing tower and antenna work above ground level is HUMAN SAFETY.
A gin pole, or raising fixture, provides this safety by giving the tower climber the needed heavy lifting ability the ground person provides.
A gin pole consists of 3 basic parts:
(1) a pulley assembly to provide mechanical advantage when lifting,
(2) a pole to gain height needed for the lift, and
(3) the clamp assembly to attach everything to the tower.
Typically the ground person does the heavy lifting, while the tower person above has the freedom to guide and fasten the tower and antenna components together.
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To use a gin pole, assemble the clamp and pulley on a 2 inch o.d. pipe 10 to 15 feet long.
To erect a tower, first install a tower section on the concrete pad and attach the gin pole on the upper part of this section. Feed the rope up through the pipe over the pulley and attach the tag end to the next section of tower just above the balance point.
Raise this section up over the first section by pulling on the gin pole rope and attach it to the bottom section with fasteners.
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Repeat this process until the tower is erected, then use the gin pole to lift the rotor, mast, and antennas into place.
The pulley can be adjusted to any desired height by loosening the clamp t bolt and sliding up or down the pipe to help install these components.
Always pull the load up against the side of the tower to minimize the stress on the tower and the gin pole. When a high lifting angle is used to raise the load (to clear trees, obstructions, ect) , the stress put on the tower and gin pole pipe could become severe and possibly uncontrollable.
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This method is as dangerous as using a power winch or vehicle to raise tower sections or antennas and have a binding situation occur that goes unnoticed until the force becomes excessive and a failure in the tower, gin pole or lift line.
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Gin pole kits are designed to lift loads using human power and should never be used with any type of mechanical power.
Proper use of a gin pole provides a controllable and safe method to erect and maintain a tower and antenna assembly, use it!
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