KAJO Tower Base Insulator Replacement 

Ya really have confidence in your engineering to work underneath 15 tons of tower suspended by 3 jacks. I'm impressed.......

Thanks for posting this video to give us a unique insight into the detail of antennae maintenance that we would not normally have access to.

The wipe down. LoL you guys fuckkking nailed it ! Great patience!

I would have never thought this was possible! Great job!

I've done this, we picked the tower with a crane and installed the new taller insulator. We installed new longer turnbuckles and pre-forms on the guy wires 1 by 1 after the pick. We used 3pcs 60' slings and picked the tower 60 feet below the tip top in order to keep 3 sections in a compressive force instead of putting the tower under the full tensile pull of its own weight.

Impossible engineering! 😮 Amazing!

The ball-like objects on thin posts? Spark gaps for lightning and other static electricity discharge?

The other issue is the gap needs to be adjusted depending on the power level of the station(s) transmitting on the tower. We want the gap to be as small as possible to give lightning the best chance of dissipating through the gap but yet not inadvertently go off on peak modulation or nuisance pops.

Very cool in deed, thanks for sharing. Interesting work.

Good job, guys. Was wondering how the new insulator was not funnel shaped such as the old one and how that would affect load transfer/area loading?

I wanted that old insulator so bad!

Beckley west va. Yep we did the same exact thing. Insalator was busted to peices. We jacked tower up installed what they call a wedding cake.

Im a little lost.what kept the base from kicking out to sides???and 7" taller, makes for longer guy line compensation.

Excellent. Nothing else made any sense and I have never seen them on an insulator like that before. It begs the question of why do it that way, though, instead of designing the spark gap directly into the insulator. I suppose it is difficult to maintain the mechanical integrity of the insulating ceramic under the sizable compression forces if the material composition changes in the middle.

Our tower was like 500 ft I think. Been a long time ago. But I do remember doing that.

Extremely interesting, thank you. As the tower was jacked up, were the guy wire turnbuckles loosened, or did the jacks stretch the guy wires (i.e. elastic deformation)?

I thought it might have been prudent to screen off the insulator temporarily in case it shattered when the load came on it.

Was the tower broadcasting while this work was being done?

Well done gents.

Sure, that makes perfect sense. Thanks!

We used three forty or sixty ton generac hydraulic jacks to lift the tower after coming down on guy wire turn buckles

What is the insulator made of?

That is correct.

I thought my job was dangerous. No way I would, more so could do this!

tappy tap tap

That wasnt a fart. That was me soiling my under shorts!

The other issue is the gap needs to be adjusted depending on the power level of the station(s) transmitting on the tower. We want the gap to be as small as possible to give lightning the best chance of dissipating through the gap but yet not inadvertently go off on peak modulation or nuisance pops.