Several years ago I acquired an unidentified tilt-over crank-up tower. Manual winches, it appeared to be about 60 feet tall. The deal was take it down and it is yours. So it has sat behind my shop for about 10 years.
Recently, I saw a picture on the internet of an identical tower, and it was identified as an EZ Way, not that it mattered much to me at the time. However, the motorized trailered tilt-over crank-up tower that our club has used for Field Day for many years isn’t available this year. Ah-hah! Now I have a reason to be interested in the EZ Way. Of course, it was designed to be ground mounted. But I have a heavy trailer, and began considering the possibility of mounting the tower, temporarily and safely, on the trailer.
Short story is I reinforced the under frame at the four anchor bolt points for the tower base, and also fabricated a support for the long end of the tower to rest on when in transit.
All attachments to the trailer are bolted, so the installation is easily reversible to return the trailer to normal utility use. The project turned out quite nice!
For FD, I don’t expect to need to crank up to more than 45 feet. Exercising the KISS principle, I’ll install a flat top plate with a 3 ft pipe stubbed up. Then, I can slide the larger diameter mast over it, and rotate it by a pull rope attached to one end of the boom. The antenna will be a KT-34.
Many thanks to Jim W5LA, Mark K5MSB and Shawn WA5VQP for the helping hands on the labor to make this all possible.
In 2020, I removed this tower from the trailer and installed it on a homemade Wonder Post.
Very nice well-done love to know what you used for the base supporting the boom of the Tower I have received an old 65 foot EZ Way tilt over tower in the same way you have I am looking to ground mounting the base of the Tower came across some opposition to design something since I was unable to dig up the wonder pole from being concerted in not knowing how deep they went since the wonder pole is about 6′ in length and with side fins if you have some ideas love to hear from you,
Thanks, Ted Dean KD2ARD
73’s
Ted, thanks for the compliment! I have another blog post showing how I made my own “wonder post” and installed the tower
73
Scott W5WZ
A friend of mine has the 60 ft model. In 92 andrew bent the wonder post and tower. He had a F600 wrecker (the model between a car wrecker and the big Semi wrecker) come out and simply pull the bent post out of the ground. Ha had a slow flow of water saturating the ground for 24 hrs before the wrecker scheduled. He told me the post puld out relativley easily
Hello Sir.
Not a Ham here. GMRS and CB guy but mostly GMRS as CB is a pain in my opinion and too lazy to study to become a Ham.
I just acquired an E-Z Way 40′ like yours and have all the parts with the exception of the wonder thingie LOL Like yours it was encased in concrete and I was not going to unearth something that has been buried since some time during the 80’s.
My problem and a request for you is… Is there any way you can take any pictures of the cable routing and locking plate for the tower when it goes up?
All my cables or what’s left of them are rusted and just on the crank as they did not use the rubber-coated, there’s no old cable to follow to rewire following the old cable. The tower has been out of commission for the past 15 years and there’s is no detailed drawings anywhere that I can find with the exception of a brochure from the makers of the tower but not much info or details on it as the company went out of business from what I understand more than a decade ago.
WROG208
Sorrento,FL
Alex,
Thanks for the note. I’ll see what I can do.
–Scott
Very nice I have the same tower. I’m having trouble with re-threading the cable. The cable was off the tower when I got it so I don’t know how it show be. Also the safety brake how doe that work.
Thanks
Mike
Saftey brake is a piece of metal that physically limits the retraction of tower sections. The weight of the sections sits on it. To disengage the safety, you have to extend the tower a few inches and then pull the rope to release the safety mechanism. Then you can lower the tower.
Good Moring
I just acquired an EZ-way 3 section Tower. The cable was missing and I need to figure out the cable run. I have the base and second section done. There are two pulleys at the top of the second second that’s where I need help with and how the end of the cable is secured.
Thanks
Mike