The Tower, one of the most important structures for a budding wireless network hub. This one was picked up on the Net for $50! It is seven 5ft sections making the tower 35ft high. The tower is up on the roof of our building, which adds another 20ft, putting the tower at 55ft above Sea level. It's not much, but it's the best we can do while our location is in a river basin. The tower was erected in the fall of 1996.

This is a view of the l0pht antenna farm from the roof, pre-tower. The Beam is a 2 meter yagi operating 1200Bd packet, pointing at MIT. The 3 dishes are pulling in newsfeeds and the FM antenna at the right is just for pulling in the local college radio stations.
Brian Oblivion (left) and Space Rogue (right) work on securing the base of the tower to the roof before "walking" the structure up.
Again, Brian Oblivion working on the base of the Tower. We used two 4x6 pressure treated blocks of wood. They are attached to the roof via two metallic U-brackets and secured by 5 inch woodscrews into the crossbeams supporting the roof. All entry points are sealed with tar. The tower actually rests on two hinges and a third support which is bolted to the baseplate when tower is erected. The supports can be seen in the image at the left.
There is Brian Oblivion, yet again, securing the remaining leg now that the non-hinged manifold has been secured and bolted to the baseplate. Notice that darkness has fallen yet the l0pht crew continues to work until late in the evening. We actually finished guying the tower at 1AM later that evening.
Guying the tower is one of the most critical tasks. We guyed each opposite end loosely and the tightened each guy in the same fashion as they were installed. Here we have Brian Oblivion tightening the U-Clamps while Kingpin, Weld and Space Rogue apply the appropriate amount of tension to the line. A turnbuckle is between the loop created by the U-clamps and the hook attached to the roof. Further tension applied to the guys is achieved by tightening the turnbuckles.
The guys take a break after a long night of work. We broke out the sodium-vapor work lights and sported strapon headlamps to finish the good work. Here we have, starting on the left, Brian Oblvion, Tan, Weld Pond and Space Rogue.
Next day and we check our handiwork and also for any damage we may have caused to the roof while assembling and erecting the tower. All holes would be patched immediately.
The end of the project. The tower is erected and a simple UHF-HI band antenna is attached and pointed towards a local Trunking system. Other antenna's currently on tower but not pictured are: 2 meter omni-directional, 900MHz Yagi, and 800MHz Omnidirectional. Mulitband HF Quad mounted at top with rotor is soon to become the latest addition come Spring 1998.