*Joining & Separating Rohn Tower*

By Jaden

18 January 2005

There are a couple of tricks to assembling/disassembling Rohn tower sections. First of all, fit it together on the ground. Even though it is a triangle, sometimes they like to go together only one way. Once you’ve got 2 sections together, mark the same leg on both sections so it goes together the same way in the air. This leg will be the one that’s attached to the gin pole rope.

The real trick is called a tower jack. They come in different sizes. This one is for a Rohn 25 tower. They’re a little bigger for a 45 & 55. It is used to squeeze the sections together and pry them apart. For this article I used a 25 jack on a 45 tower….don’t have any 25 immediately available.

Rohn 25 jack

The rope is used to attach it to the tower when in the air to prevent it from falling if dropped.

10’ section of Rohn 45

About 65 lbs

Ok, so you have your sections, fit them together. First, check the joints and make sure they’re smooth. Male end and female end. Even a little bit of dirt or galvanization spatter can bind it right up. BTDT. @ 90’ in the air!! If they’re rough, file them.

Just start them together and if you’re lucky, they’ll slide completely together easily. If not…then the jack.

Pretty simple actually. Use the jack on all 3 legs and it shouldn’t take long to get it on.

Jacking together

Look in the middle of the picture and see the 2 holes at the joint. You can see the left piece inside the right.

Keep prying it together until those bolt holes line up.

Then use a center punch and pound it into a hole to line it up perfectly. Then the bolts can go in.

Ok, now let’s take it apart.

Jacking apart

Notice the difference?

If this was a Rohn 45 jack, the sections would have popped apart….but you get the picture.

A hundred feet or so in the air and this gets fun. Take the time to make sure the joints are clean. I was 80’ in the air, putting up the 90’ section and it jammed up on me. It was on over the 8^th section, but not completely. I had the jack up there and pryed and pryed, hammered, pounded, pryed and it wouldn’t budge. The tower was guyed at 30’ & 60’ so I was 20’ above them, rocking and rolling a little :o) I even climbed up on the 9^th section and stood on the tower jack…nothing. While on the 9^th section I jumped up and down while wiggling it. That finally freed it up some. After about an hour I got it so the bolt holes lined up. That was NOT fun!! The rest of the tower (the first 8 sections and the last 5 sections above it went fine) After the jam we spent awhile filing and filing to ensure that didn’t happen again. I was lucky that day. Rohn 25 only weighs about 30 pounds per section. Rohn 45= 65lbs and Rohn 55=100lbs. When you’re 110’ in the air and are dealing with a 100 pound tower section, it’s not easy. Trust me.

Well, I expect to be putting up another tower soon so I’ll take step by step pictures of everything. Setting the base, the anchor points, Putting up the 1^st 30’, running the guys, installing pre-form grips, putting the sections together while in the air, mounting antennas etc.

Jaden