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You can
write your own review of the Glen Martin Towers.
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WA7SCH
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Rating: 5/5
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Oct 18, 2009 21:41
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Roof top 9 foot tower
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Tower came in a couple of boxes. Went together as the instructions indicated. All of the hardware was good and all of the tower pieces were well produced. I didn't notice any quality problems with what I received.
Put the tower up on the roof using 2 x 6's in the rafters instead of 2 x 4's. Fit right into the rafter and the support board indicated in the directions just sit right below it.
The tower seems pretty solid and it went together the way you would expect it to.
The only "complaint" was they were out of stock and I had to wait about 1 1/2 months for the thing to show up. This got it into the rainy season here in Seattle. Got chased off the roof 3 times in squalls - not a fun thing to put a tower up in. It looks like it will weather anything we have up here.
Cheers,
Mike WA7SCH
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WF0GM
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Rating: 3/5
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May 30, 2009 09:07
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Model M-1850A
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I really wanted a US Tower TX-455 55' crank-up but the shipping cost was $900 compared to $200 for the Glen Martin M-1850A. Also, the TX-455 comes on a truck assembled and I had no idea how I was going to get it off of the truck when it arrived at my QTH. I was able to unload the Glen Martin from the truck by opening the crate and unloading the tower piece by piece. (Heaviest part about 35 lbs.)
I really was interested in a tower I would not have to climb, so the M-1850A seemed to be my best choice since it came with a Hazer.
I had never built a tower before so it took very careful planning, and still I had issues that I should not have had due to poor customer service.
The good things:
The tower was fairly easy to unload and assemble.
I did not need a crane to unload or erect it.
It looks great being made out of aluminum.
It is strong enough to handle a Minnesota winter.
The sections are engineered to fit together nice and snug.
I should not have to climb it again.
The tower meets my needs.
The bad things:
The base was not designed like the literature I had received so it put some confusion into the mix. I talked to an engineer there who assured me that it would be strong enough, but I welded reinforcements to the base section and a rebar cage for the hole anyway.
I found many loose bolts so I tighted each one (600) by hand.
I had to order an extra messenger line kit.
I had to order three extra base nuts, and buy lock washers from another vendor.
I had to install a lightning rod on the top of the mast, because the Hazer is electrically isolated from the tower.
I got wise and bought MUCH BETTER copper ground wire from a local lightning protection vendor for MUCH less than what Glen Martin offered.
The guy clamps need extra bolts. One slipped during raising, and forced a climb to correct the problem after it was erected.
Customer service was just not that great.
But if I had to do it all over again, due to the fact that I do not own heavy equipment, I still think I made the right choice and I would recommend the tower for those people.
If you have heavy equipment at your disposal, I would recommend getting a different tower such as a TX-455.
If you like me have never built a tower before, you may read about my entire experience and see photos on my web sight here:
http://wf0gm.fpage.com/tower1.htm
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W7IS
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Rating: 5/5
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Mar 12, 2009 16:58
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Great Value
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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4 years ago I installed an RT-26 4 sided tower on the front deck of the home. Its survived many 100mph wind storms and never once complained. Its a great product in a roof tower but it does have a few rough edges that you have to sort out during assembly. I originally placed a blog on AOL 4 years ago but AOL shut down the blogs. So today I made up a new google blog at the following link: Describing in picture detail how I managed the installation. Its worked out so well over the past 4 years, I plan to install another one at our new QTH this summer.
http://glenmartinrooftowerinstall.blogspot.com/
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W0BKR
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Rating: 0/5
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Apr 8, 2008 08:33
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Select a different brand!
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I have had a GM M1350 installed for about 5 years. Recently, we were lowering the antennas to do some antenna work and released the safety latch, began to crank the winch and whooosh, the Hazer dropped about 1 tower segment until the safety latch lanyard was released, causing it to stop it's suddent and unexpected descent.
What happened in short is the cable sleeve had slipped off the cable, the sleeve GM installs. The cable did not break, but the cable came off the tower completely as a result. I shudder to think what might have been.
A call to GM about this design deficiency got me to no engineer, but to a sales rep. Typical. Usually you get a receptionist, but this guy recommended I climb the tower (which my abbreviated instructions state to NEVER CLIMB this tower), and walk the Hazer down. What kind of advice is that?
Anyway, if you own one of this nightmares, install a back up cable stop at the top of the hazer and beef up the one at the bottom.
I shudder to think that someone might have been decapitated, killed or seriously injured by the Hazer sliding down the tower like a blade.
Be careful with these towers. They are not very well engineered.
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W7PSK
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 27, 2007 08:55
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9ft tower is very sturdy
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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Ive had my GM tower up about 5 months now and its solid as a rock. Ive a Cushcraft A-4 above it about 4 feet. Im not a small person (near 300#) and I could stand on it when we got it installed on the roof. I used 2x10s in the rafters and bolted down through them.
The tower is rock solid and hasn't swayed or moved with near 80mph winds we've had so far.
I'm really pleased with it.
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W2WAS
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Rating: 5/5
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Oct 20, 2007 22:11
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RT-936
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I purchased an RT-936 and a heavy duty 9' aluminum mast to support an Optibeam OB9-5 and a Yaesu G-1000DXA rotator. It was mounted atop my two-story home. It utilized a Yaesu GS-065 thrust bearing at Glen Martin's suggestion because they stopped producing their own.
Tower assembly was very easy, and I had no problems at all. No burrs or misdrilled holes in my tower! It took me about two hours of careful work to assemble it. The thrust bearing and rotator fit perfectly.
I deviated from Glen Martin's instructions and used a pair of 2x10s across the rafters in my attic and eight lengths of all-thread (one for each bolt hole in the feet of the tower) through the 2x10s to brace the tower. It made for a VERY sturdy installation. I never experienced any creaks or rattles when high winds struck my area. I had no fear whatsoever about the resiliency of the installation.
A friend with a bucket truck mounted the tower on my roof and placed the beam on the tower. It was up for one year before I sold my home and relocated.
I was very pleased with the tower, and I would have no hesitation in recommending it. A friend bought my tower when I relocated, and it was in like new condition when I delivered it to him.
73, Tony
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AB0RE
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Rating: 1/5
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Oct 20, 2007 20:55
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RT-936 - Engineered Disastor!
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I ordered an RT-936 factory direct from Glen Martin. I couldn't do a ground-mounted tower, so I wanted the next best thing. At the time of my order I also got two MC-10 mast clamps, some climbing gear, and the hardware kit (lag bolts & washers) to mount the RT-936 to the roof.
The RT-936 is a bit of a beast tipping the scales at 56 pounds and 9' tall. Hauling the thing up a ladder is not really a one-person job. So, I enlisted the help of my roofer, who agreed to get paid on a per-hour basis for the time he spent on the RT-936 installation.
When the box showed up I found the hardware pack had split open and the dozens of nuts and bolts were floating loosely in the package. They did a number on the brushed aluminum. Sure, the damage will be hard to see from street-level, but I had much higher expectations for a $460 9' tower.
Next problem... I had a mis-drilled bracket, which held up assembly of the tower. I called my sales person, Sam Jones, to explain the situation. He asked a lot of questions about the mis-drilled bracket, almost like he didn't believe me. I ended up emailing pictures of the misdrilled bracket and a replacement bracket was sent out. Sam said it is very rare to find a mis-drilled piece, but it appears N0AH had similar problems, so I'm not sure that is the case. Also, as with N0AH's tower, I noticed a lot of rough edges on the cuts. I was expecting precision and quality of workmanship, but again, my expectations were not met.
Next problem... I followed the Glen Martin instructions to the letter for how to provide the blocking / bracing in the attic. The RT-936's owners manual specifically calls for three 2x6's under each leg. The outer 2x6's are supposed to have the lag bolts drilled into their sides and the center 2x6 acts as a spacer. The problem is that the "engineers" at Glen Martin Engineering think a 2x6 is EXACTLY 2" thick and they spaced the lag bolt holes 4" apart. (A 2x6 is actually ~1.5" wide so the lag bolt holes should've been placed 3" apart... any body who has an engineering degree should've been able to figure that out.) So I made another trip back to the hardware store to get 1/2" pine to make "shims" to put in the blocking (so now there are a total of five boards under each leg... this is getting pretty complicated).
Okay, so far I've received a cosmetically damaged tower with a mis-drilled part and incorrect instructions... After all those headaches I finally got the tower together and the blocking material made. Now the roofer was finally ready for the tower. And wouldn't ya know it, the lag bolts PURCHASED FROM GLEN MARTIN would not fit through the holes in the tower's feet!!! The holes were already 3/8" wide and I did not have a bigger drill bit. I again called to Sam Jones to ask what he recommended. He would not approve me expensing a larger drill bit and suggested I use a file to make the bolt openings larger. So that I did, which resulted in additional delays and additional expenses in paying the roofer. Sam promised his manager would call me back the next business day to discuss the issues I had with the RT-936.
Sam's manager, Beau Aero, did not call me back as promised. After a follow-up email to Sam I finally got a call from Beau. Beau first said that the blocking instructions were "just a general recommendation". I reminded him that the tower can't really have a specified windload rating if specific installation requirements are not given. I also pointed out that the instructions of the RT-936 SPECIFICALLY say to use three 2x6's. Beau said that the manual should probably be upgraded. I also visited with Beau about the many other quality issues I had experienced with my RT-936. Beau asked me to put an email together documenting my extra time and expenses for the rooftop tower. I did that the same day and emailed it to him. A couple days later I received an email from Beau saying, "Company policy does not allow me to provide a reimbursement for labor hours, lost time, or installation supplies". It appears Beau asking me to send a list of extra out-of-pocket expenses due to Glen Martin's manufacturing problems and incorrect installation manual was his way of ending an uncomfortable telephone call.
My advice? Don't buy a Glen Martin tower. Their quality is terrible and their customer service is not far behind.
If you're in the market for a roof-top deal to hold small to medium sized antennas, check out the 5' tripod from Easy-Up (available from AES for $59 - this is what I had at my last residence). The 5' Easy-Up is large enough to allow one to bolt all three legs directly to a rafter without all the bracing BS required with the Glen Martin model. It's suprisingly stout as well.
If you need something more heavy duty than the Easy-Up, I'd suggest holding out for a used tower, which can be had for pennies on the dollar. An actual ground-mounted tower would be just a little more expensive and probably require slightly longer to install, but will be MUCH less of a headache overall.
If you MUST buy a Glen Martin roof-top tower, you should first consider yourself warned. Next, be sure to put the tower together well in advance to give yourself extra time to deal with Glen Martins manufacturing defects. Throw out the instruction manual and design your own blocking plans... and just hope that a building inspector doesn't decide to make an example out of you. Finally, take a day off work to build and install the tower and be sure to have Glen Martin on speed dial so you can call when you run into problems.
The Glen Martin rooftop towers are a very poor value for the price paid. They have an okay idea but the implentation is absolutely terrible! If they'd revise their manuals, pay attention during the assembly process, and adopt the "customer is always right" mindset, they'd be a respectable company with a respectable product.
73,
Dan / ab0re
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N0AH
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Rating: 5/5
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Oct 19, 2007 21:25
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RT-1832 17.5 foot tower lessons
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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The main reason I decided to post this is due to the experience I gained in putting this tower together.
First, Sam Jones at Glen Martin Engineering Inc. at Ph: 1-800-486-1223 x 228 was awesome in his service. From the time of my first inquiry to my last question today, he has been 100% professional.
Professional in answering my calls, helping coordinate requested infromation by my professional engineer, (PE) and county, and dealing with explaining how this tower goes together.
Now that the tower is built, it is solid. I am reviewing it before it is going on the roof but with the PE drawings and the use of a professional contractor, I am not worried.
All hardware was there. Only one piece had a mis-drilled hole and it was replaced via UPS right away. With over 200 holes, I think this was FB.
OK, so what didn't go well.
Dealing with my county. I had to throw around the PRB-1 book at them and go through the top of the planning department then the building department for my permit.
They didn't want a tower of significant height to have a chance to fall in my neighbor's yards. So there went the idea of a 50 foot crank up tower in smoke.
I countered with a roof-top tower that would give me about 45 feet of combined height using the house without risk of a 17.5 foot tower falling into the neighbor's yard.
I would win in court with my free standing crank up via PRB-1 but I found compromise was in the best interest of all and so did the county. Besides, the roof top was a lot, and I mean a lot, less expensive.
When the county building department saw the tower and MO PE certiication stamp, they insisted that a Colorado PE needed to review the tower and design the roof reinforcement drawings.
So I started at the ARRL for a volunteer CO PE. They had three. Two had died and one was MIA. So I did an internet search and kept running into $1,500+ bids.
But there is always a call to service by certain individuals who realize how important our hobby is and I received my drawings and Colorado PE stamp from PEI Consultant Engineers. They worked directly with Glen Martin to get the converted numbers needed to meet Colorado's stringent requirements. (Check with your local requirements as my PE has nothing to do with your specific installation)
As for the assembly, the tower is packed well but it is a bit overwhelming at first. I used a permanant marker on each piece to make sure I didn't loseor confuse it with anothwer piece.
In the manual, the pieces have 6 digit stock numbers and then the same part has a 2 digit part number on the drawing. So I just marked the piece with the part number and made sure the rods were marked as either diagonal or horizontal. This was time consuming but in the long run, it save hours of time.
There was some question as to how to use the bolts and threaded nuts. My vote is to use the head of the bolt on the inside of the tower and the nut attaching to the bolt on the outside of the tower. It leaves a lot more room when having a lot of corner bolts so close to one another.
When tighting bolts, we used a variable drill and an OPEN end wrench 7/16 both sides. Before this during construction, we hand tightened the bolts and nuts until the entire tower was done. We found that beginning to tighten the bolts for final assembly from the bottom of the tower worked a lot easier. It also gave a chance to be more precise with tighting the bolts and nuts near the rotor cage.
The rotor cage is a confusing mess at first but takes shape once you can support the brackets with the tower construction. Still, like a couple of reviews I have found on the internet, the cut slot for the rotor screws are just a bit too small for my Yaesu 450 bolts to go through to attach the rotor. It won't take much to modify but it is a bummer.
The tower legs did have a few burrs. But all screws went threw and evey diagonal and horizontal rod fit perfectly.
As for the ladder, I'll be using 4x4 wood blocking between trusses bracketed between the tower base plate and two Unistruts with two 1/2 inch through bolts. The unistruts will span accross 4 truss bays to distribute the load. For me, I'm comfortable. But check with your own PE. I could be dead by the time you read this (-:
This is no way a one person 4 hour job. It took myself and another person 7 hours to finish the tower and I still have to finalize the rotor fittings and put on the mast and thrust bearing.
The tower will support a light weight 5 wire beam antenna. The planned antenna, an Opti-Beam OBW-10-5, only has a 3.2 sq ft wind load at 119 KMPH. No problem for the tower.
In my county, the tower had to withstand a 100 MPH wind with 1/2 inch of ice on the tower for at least 3 seconds..........unguyed. Plans passed with flying colors-
OK, so from what you can see, most of my review is about the red tape. No fault of Glen Martin. But Glen Martin really, and I mean really, needs to get a manual with detailed drawings of critical sections. There are holes on the tower legs that don't fit to anything.
I could have save several calls to Sam, my sales person, if the manual had basic information. This really is unexplainable.
On the internet, I would suggest looking at the following website:
http://journals.aol.com/w7is/GlenMartin26ftTowerInstall/
Also, there are a couple of E-Ham reviews on this tower with links to home pages. Any where that you can find photos is a blessed event until Glen Matin gets their manual straight. Some people don't have a problem with it but it I really struggled.
Outside of this, the support made up for this and I really appreciate Glen Martin's time in helping to get the information I needed to meet my county's requirements, help for my PE, and help to guide me through building this- The obviously take pride in ownership- Very cool-
I would strongly suggest you call them for a roof top tower-
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K0CWO
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Rating: 5/5
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May 18, 2007 18:09
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RT-424 so far so good
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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This 4.5 foot roof tower went together easy. I purchased a Yaesu (Vertex) GS-065 thrust bearing along with it. The bearing fits the top bolt pattern fine. My Hygain Ham IV rotor bolts inside the tower nicely as well. The whole setup (minus rotor) set me back $200. I plan on mounting a 2 element HF beam, a 2/440 beam, and a 2/440 vertical on it. It is plenty sturdy for that when properly mounted. I don't have it on the roof yet, more to follow.
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KG2V
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Rating: 3/5
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Dec 24, 2006 16:35
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Do they hire beavers?
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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OK, I don't know how well the tower will hold up, but the workmanship on the tower I just put together is kinda poor. Almost every hole has burrs, ditto the cuts. The cross bars that the rotor mounts on - the slots are punched, and on one of them, you can see the double punch. At least one leg has a spot where they started to drill a leg in the wrong spot
I have a basement machine shop, and could do a LOT better
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