1987 Tower Installation

There were many individuals that had a part in my first "serious" tower. I also think of it as my "dream tower," since it was the largest and most well equipped.

First was N2FB, Wayne Hillenbrand. Wayne had a substantial station of his own, but had a side business of putting up towers for hams. He ran it as a business, but was generous with his company truck, as well as his tools and parts. He found the used tower, which was part of a 300-foot broadcast tower that had originally been purchased by W3IP. Mike put up 105 feet at his house, sold me 100 feet, and the bottom 100 feet of Rohn 55 was purchased by Mike, KC8C (see below). Wayne loaned me his truck to drive the tower from his house to mine on June 4, 1987, the same weekend as the Manassas hamfest. He'd already picked it up from Mike and loaded it on his truck. Then he loaned me his Nycopress tool to make up the guy wires, and sold me HD insulators for less than the Rohn models. Finally, he charged me only $35/hour for his skilled, hard work. His rates went up shortly thereafter. 

While careful, Wayne was never visibly bothered by heights like most of us would be and did whatever gymnastics were necessary to fit tower sections together, set the mast or pull up the antennas. He worked from daylight to sundown over a cold, December weekend in 1987 to make this "dream come true" tower happen for me. Over three decades years later, it's still there, and I had a ball using it for 24 years. When we moved in December 2011, it was left behind, since the labor to remove it would have exceeded its value.

There were other helpers too on the day the antennas went up: a co-worker, Bob Cergol, who drove the lawn tractor to haul the concrete into the woods (he was the best driver at backing up the trailer full of concrete), Gene Marden, AI4W (now SK; his call has been re-issued), who loaned me his more substantial cart for the tractor, then stood on the tongue of it to keep the wheels from spinning when it was filled with hundreds of pounds of concrete, and Mike Colesante, KC8C (now SK), who lent his hands and back to the effort.

And my wife Diane, who said, "if you can hide it, you can have it,"  who documented the event and took most of these pictures and videos the day the tower went up with our newborn son in a front carrier. She endured this structure and its ramifications for so many years, when it and the hobby itself often captured more of my attention than is appropriate or warranted. Approaching 50 (48 in 2025) years later, she's still God's greatest earthly gift to me.

The captions in the album (link below) tell most of the story. They don't provide a detailed construction blueprint—just some reminiscences of the season when I was given the opportunity to have a tower the provided a significant too to enjoy more serious chasing DX and contesting from you own station.

Album of Tower Project - 1987 Nokesville, VA