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Anemometer elevator

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SLOweather:
In the middle of the night, I woke up and laid there and designed an anemometer elevator for those who aspire to greater heights than they can achieve. :)

A post as tall as you want, with a garage door opener mounted on it vertically... Add as much track and chain as is needed to achieve desired elevation.

Mount the anny and transmitter on the trolly.

You'll probably have to hack the limit switches, or add new ones.

On a more serious note, it seems like it might be feasible to rig up a similar, manual arrangement on a flagpole. You'd need to fab up some sort of dock at the top to keep it secure and aimed correctly.

(FWIW, the garage door opener elevator idea isn't original to me. There used top be a shoe store in town with the repair shop upstairs. They used an opener as an elevator to move pairs of shoes up and down.)

miraculon:

--- Quote ---On a more serious note, it seems like it might be feasible to rig up a similar, manual arrangement on a flagpole.
--- End quote ---

Sounds interesting. For some reason the flagpole antenna on "Hogan's Heroes" comes to mind...

Greg H.

WeatherHost:
I had all this kind of thing figured out long ago to raise and lower a heavier TV antenna.  I never put it into use because I came up with a way to lean the whole mast over to the ground by using a winch and 100' or so of stainless cable.

The plan was to use one of the $50 Harbor Freight winches mounted at the bottom with a sheave block at the top to contain the cable.  Unit would be on a collar around the mast that would be pulled up and seat into a docking mechanism and be help in place by cable tension from the winch.

But that was for something much heavier.  For this kind of thing, a simple hand crank boat trailer type winch should work.  Care would have to be taken when bringing it down to avoid free wheeling which is why I might still use a powered winch.  But then again, in most cases, we're only talking 30' or less whereas my antenna was closer to 60' up.

vreihen:
In for a penny, in for a pound.....

http://qrznow.com/build-a-25-50-free-standing-tilt-then-crank-up-tower-antenna/

WeatherHost:
^^  I looked at a few of those before and I can see certain uses.  But I still think you could end up with a weight/control issue when lowering.  If it got away from you somehow, you wouldn't want anything under it.

I've got a small camera about 20' up right now.  Hung a steel cable over a pulling point at the top of a telephone pole and ran a bolt into the base of the pole to secure a 20' length of fence top rail.  Doesn't take a lot of effort to raise and lower that way.  But even with that, I have to make sure I'm not under it in case something lets go.  Losing a $70 camera would be a lot easier to handle than a broken shoulder.

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