Well, Harbor Freight emailed me a 25% coupon last week so I picked up the hoist much earlier than I anticipated.

Saturday, May 26 I spent about an hour disassembling the old hoist.  I had made it from the original hand-crank winch and a 1/9 horsepower reversible electric motor I had salvaged from an old height-adjustable office desk raising mechanism.  I simply connected the motor gearbox to the winch crank handle with sprockets and a chain.  It worked well but was necessarily geared way down so it took 25 minutes to raise or lower the tower.

Your hoist frame bolted to the tower with no alteration and took less than ten minutes to do.  The mounting holes matched perfectly.

The next task was to remove the factory cable from the new Harbor Freight hoist.  It took a bit of persuasion to get the spool free from it's bearing in the end of the frame but that job was done in a few minutes and the cable was removed after I took a photo of the way in which the cable end was attached to the spool.  I knew I would have to duplicate that at the tower with the tower cable.  By the way, in my case with the TMM 541 tower, the cable diameter was just 1/32 inch larger than the original cable on the hoist and  went easily through the hole and retention slot in the spool.  On a larger tower with larger diameter cable, some alteration of the spool would probably be needed.

It  took about a half hour to attach  the tower cable to the spool, reassemble the spool to the gearbox shaft and rebolt the hoist to its frame.  Another half hour or so to position and bolt the hoist to your frame and the job was done.  I got torque specs for the mounting bolts off the internet and everything is properly torqued.  Here again, the mounting holes in your frame were perfectly matched to the Harbor Freight hoist and there were  lots of alternative holes for proper alignment of the hoist and the tower cable.  Total project time was less than three hours

The first raising went flawlessly.  From bottom to top took less than 30 seconds.  It was amazing! 

 It moves so quickly one has to be alert to when it reaches the end of the travel.  I immediately did the first lowering and it also went perfectly.

Thanks for a well designed and wonderfully made product.  It's a joy to use and will make tower and antenna maintenance and storm avoidance much easier.  Feel free to use me as a reference for any customers who may want to talk to a satisfied customer.

KØRO

New! 

High strength dacron rope.

Shackles, carabiners, and quick links.

Build your own wire antenna materials....wire, insulators, ladder line ,etc.

Finally, a true bolt on conversion for manual winch crank-up towers!  The hoist mount allows an electric hoist (purchased separately) to directly bolt on to most crank-up towers, replacing the original hand crank winch.  The mount consists of a heavy, solid platform to attach the hoist.  Designed for Northern Tool or Harbor Freight hoists.  Mount can be easily modified to work with other brands if desired.

I am very pleased with the Hoist bracket and set-up Chris!  It fit perfectly and works flawlessly.  Nice powder coat job.  My only concern would be about the quality of the hoist, but certainly not the bracket.  You build things like I do and prefer to have built.  A good quality bracket engineered with a healthy safety margin.  Good Job!

N8UKF

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N1NK photos.

Advantages:   

1. •    Bolt on conversion, no drilling.
   

2. •    Heavy steel construction, precision MIG welded, hot dip galvanized.
   

3. •    Hoist bolt pattern ready, tower bolt pattern ready.
   

4. •    Uses your existing cable; just wind it around the drum on the new hoist.
   

5. •    Ridiculously fast raising speeds:  60 seconds on a 50’ crank-up tower.

This product is made to order on a case-by-case basis.  It will work on most late model crank-up towers.  The hoists listed above have been tested on 50 and 70 foot towers. 

Keep in mind that any electric motor that needs a high amp draw will struggle on a long extension cord.  If your tower is farther from a power outlet than about 40-50 feet, you may need to use a very heavy gauge cord, and/or run a dedicated power circuit to the tower to power the hoist motor.

Cost:  $225-250 depending on tower model.  If interested, send me an email with the following information: Tower brand, model, and size.  Also include pictures of your current winch.  I need to see how it mounts to tower; pictures from side and rear (looking through tower) would be helpful.  After getting this information I can discuss the next steps.  I will likely send your photos back with annotations of the measurements I need so bolt holes can go in the correct positions (see photos below).  Customer will need to purchase the above hoist. 

More pics in the gallery.                        Email:  Chris at KF7P dot com.

N8UKF photo.

Examples of annotated photos showing needed measurements.  Due to the dozens of tower models out there, I am finding it is impossible to do a universal, one size fits all hoist mount.  Even similar tower models of different vintage are completely different!

Great job and quick response. Works great for me! Thanks Chris

N6DSM

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