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You can
write your own review of the Glen Martin Towers.
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K5TGS
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Rating: 5/5
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Aug 24, 2011 09:30
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The Way To Go!
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I have had the roof tower system up for over two years now. What a great way to go. The package arrived after ordering from Texas Towers (another great company!) in a small slender box. The frame and hardware were all packaged neatly and carefully. I assembled the tower within an hour and then mounted the rotor and bearing. I solicited help and got the tower on the peak of the roof. From that time on it has not moved. Even in high winds it just stands straight. The frame was well made and all holes were matched perfectly. A great way to go when you do not want a ground mounted tower.
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KE7ZAG
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Rating: 5/5
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May 23, 2011 14:32
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Good Value
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I purchased the RT-832 over a year ago, used! So, unable to comment on how the manufacturer packages. But, for bang for the buck I really do not see how anyone could go wrong with the version I purchased.
The tower was sent unassembled, was a snap to assemble, and took less than an hour in my shop. Very easy to assemble. I did add four stainless steel bolts to the cross braces, right in the middle of where they cross. This stopped the vibration I could hear in high winds.
The biggest issue was bracing in my attic. Not something you want to skip over lightly. But, even that went well, and the tower now supports an 11 foot solid fiberglass mast, two M2 VHF and UHF yagi antennas, and hosts a Yaesu G-450A with absolutely great results.
It has been through two over 100 mph wind storms that took out three trees on the place, and the tower just took the brunt of it!
Very happy in this application.
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K2QB
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Rating: 5/5
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May 23, 2011 07:25
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Excellent Product
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Just finished installing the 9' tower on my house and overall the project went off with just one issue that I can complain about. I ordered the unit through Texas Towers and waited almost 8 weeks to receive it. Texas Towers was more then gracious and even offered to cancel my order because of the long delay. I fianlly called GM myself and was told that my unit ws actually on the floor for final inspection and shipment. That was good news but I was leaving on vacation in 3 days and wouldn't be home for 10 days so I asked them to please not ship it for at least a week. Not a problem I was told. Well guess what? The tower arrived 2 days later! Not sure if I should have been pleased or not. FIrst I will say that these are quality units. I had no issues with any burrs or misaligned holes. Everything went together smoothly and easly. Assembled it myself and had it standing up in the garage in a couple of hours. The only issue I did have was with the top not excepting my 2" mast. I installed the recommended Yaseu TB-25 thrust bearing which excepts up to a 2 5/8" mast. The top of the GM tower however wouldn't let the mast pass through so a little grinding of the four top rails while were were up on the roof took care of that problem. I needed to modify the rotor mounting system to accept my HDR-300 but that was easily done. So tower is installed awaiting antenna installation this weekend.
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KI6NQT
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Rating: 5/5
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Mar 16, 2011 19:10
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Nice setup (8ft)
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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No problems here. Well built, easy to assemble. Fast shipping, well packaged.
Excellent!
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AB0RE
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Rating: 2/5
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Sep 13, 2010 07:25
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RT-936 Lessons
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Well my RT-936 review mysteriously disappeared from eHam, so I guess I'll leave another.
I've owned my RT-936 for a few years now. I bought it and installed it at the same time I had my roof re-shingled. Going this route was advantageous as it allowed me to drop the bracing boards through the slot at the top of the roof where the roof ridge vent installs - the boards were too long to fit through the scuttle hole to the attic (they'd get hung up on the underside of the roof).
The tower showed up with the nuts/bolts packages split open and all the hardware was floating loosely in the package. This did a number on the brushed aluminum pieces of the tower. Since the packaging is part of the tower, and I paid dearly for the tower, I think Glen Martin should've gone with heavy duty packaging for the nuts and bolts, and secured the nuts/bolts bag to the tower legs so it doesn't shake around and end up splitting open.
Next I found several rough holes in the tower. It definitely did not look like quality workmanship. One of the holes was misdrilled over 1/4" off. Glen Martin did send a replacement piece after I got interrogated over the telephone and finally offered to email them a picture of the misdrilled piece since they didn't believe me.
Assembly of the tower went okay. Nothing is "high tolerance" with the RT-936T - everything has a little play in it during assembly. Perhaps that is why some people have such a hard time getting the holes in the rotor plate to line up with their rotor which the Glen Martin tower is claimed to have been designed for.
The holes in the tower footings were not large enough to accomodate the lag bolts that Glen Martin sells specifically for this tower. I had to use a Dremel to enlarge the holes. This is a serious oversight by the folks at Glen Martin.
Another serious oversight is that the directions that came with my RT-936 were incorrect. (Again, I paid good money for the RT-936, and the supplied product documentation and installation instructions are part of that cost.) The documentation showed three 2x6's sandwiched together to be used as bracing under the roof with the lag bolts being driven into the centers of the edges of the outer two 2x6's. The problem is that the hole spacing on the foot brackets is too wide for the lag bolts to correctly screw into the center of the bracing material. This is because Glen Martin assumed that a 2x6 is actually 2" thick, which it is not. They should've known better. So, I had to get additional bracing material to use as a shim on either side of the center 2x6's. This makes for a rather complicated brace underneath the roof (5 blocks of wood for each leg, plus two long 2x6s to spread along the underside of the blocking material, across the bottom of the rafters. That's 22 chunks of wood total, plus a LOT of wood screws).
Just keep in mind with the Glen Martin towers you are buying an incomplete kit. You will have to modify your tower to get it to go together correctly and to get it mounted on the roof. You will have to make assumptions based on the poor instructions, and just hope your assumptions don't get you in trouble with the building inspector or end up damaging your roof.
With all these design issues and incorrect instructions, I can't in good conscious give the RT-936 a rating higher than "2 - Needs help". If you have a lot of time and patience to get past all the issues listed above, I think you may be happy with the end result - a sturdy rooftop tower that'll handle a substantial amount of antennas if properly secured across several rafters in the attic. As for me I wish I'd have just gone with a used ground-mounted tower. It would've been around the same price and the same amount of labor to install, and I'd be happeir with the end result.
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KE5OQV
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Rating: 5/5
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Sep 12, 2010 08:28
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Works great; looks great!
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I bought a 4.5 ft roof tower and built it in one afternoon. No problems were experienced with the directions or assembly.
I installed the tower on my roof using a different design for the support in the attic. I used 3/8 inch all-thread bolts to fasten the tower's feet to the roof. The all-thread runs through the roof to 2 inch angle iron located at right angles on the 2x6 rafters. The angle iron is fastened to the rafters with screws.
I mounted a Mosley 33A Mini Beam on the tower using a 5 ft Al alloy mast. A Hy-gain rotator was used to turn the beam.
A photo of my tower and antenna can be viewed on my entry in QRZ.com.
There has been no problems to date with the tower or beam.
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KG4FVG
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Rating: 0/5
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Jun 18, 2010 15:34
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awful
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I purchased a RT-1832 18 foot roof tower from Glen martin 3 days ago and it just arrived. The box that was they told me was a wood crate is not, it is a thin cardboard box. When I arrived at the UPS terminal the pieces of my tower were scattered all over the floor, most all of the tower was lost. The box was 75 pounds, all of the ends of the tower legs were beat up from being slammed around a UPS truck. I called Glen Martin tower back and told them of the issue and they promised they would send me another over night. Not so, I call 4 times today and was promised someone would return my call and not a single return call. What pieces of the tower that I have look like hell, the holes are not deburred and it looks like a 5 year drilled them with a cordless drill. The directions are awful too. To beat it all they wanted me to catalog what parts I have with these POS directions parts list, there are over a hundred parts and not a single one has a part number on it, garbage. These guys dont stick to their word at all. Don't deal with them unless you have time to deal with problems...
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W0BKR
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Rating: 0/5
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Apr 6, 2010 08:29
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Piece of Crap - No Support
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Well, I had to update some info. The winch system they use, who only knows where they came up with this item, you have to be Hercules to crank the hazer down, no binding, etc. I suspect the winch is bad. Contact GM and as usual, no response, no support.
Some of the "lock" nuts they use on this thing are loose, which I have never seen on a Rohn tower.
Already went thru the cable snap incident and their "technical depart" telling me to climb the tower. No way in hell.
This company must be run my marketers that know nothing about safety, design, etc.
Never again. Next time, a crank up tower from a real company.
Too many other issues to list here, but you get the drift from other users also.
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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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