VCTowers

VCTowers Tower. Antenna. Communications Infrastructure. Field work, inspections, and close-out documentation. New England and beyond.
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05/23/2026

The tower version of your buddy saying hold my beer and watch this

Half inch turnbuckle grown into a tree. Back end fully consumed by bark — been there long enough that whoever installed it has long forgotten about it. This is somebody’s guy point. Not a Rohn engineered anchor, not a concrete deadman, just an unknown termination

We run into this kind of stuff almost every other site in the amateur tower world. The conversation on install day went something like “that tree isn’t going anywhere” and everyone nodded and moved on. And they’re not wrong — trees are incredibly strong. But strong and properly terminated are two completely different things. The load path through a grown-in turnbuckle is unknown. There’s no way to inspect the termination, and no engineered rating on any of it

When we get called out to do work on a structure like this, our first job before we ever leave the ground is walking the guy points and the foundation. When we find something like this we are not working on that tower until we have temporary guy points rigged and we feel confident the structure is stable beneath us. There is no way of knowing what that turnbuckle looks like behind that bark or how much holding power is left. We have to account for that before anyone goes up.

Your guy anchors should be in the ground. Not in a tree. Can we please stop doing this
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The weight of your mast and antennas belongs on the rotator. Not the thrust bearing. This is one of the most common misc...
05/18/2026

The weight of your mast and antennas belongs on the rotator. Not the thrust bearing. This is one of the most common misconceptions in ham radio tower work and I got into it with a client about it this weekend on a rotator install.

The thrust bearing at the top of the tower is there to keep the mast plumb and centered. It handles lateral side load. It is not engineered to carry vertical dead weight — and here's the thing — not a single major manufacturer publishes a vertical load rating for their thrust bearings. Not DXEngineering. Not Rohn. Not Yaesu. There is no number because it was never designed to carry that load.

The rotators are what carry the weight. Yaesu G-1000DXA is rated 440 lbs vertical. Hy-Gain T2X handles over 1,000 lbs. The M2 Orion OR2800PX is rated 1,800 lbs vertical with an internal thrust bearing rated at 2,000 lbs. These are published numbers. The Yaesu G-1000DXC manual specifically states that installing a thrust bearing does NOT remove mast weight from the K-factor calculation — because the rotator is still carrying it.

Snugging your thrust bearing down tight to lift weight off the rotator is a workshop myth. Not a spec-driven procedure. Your rotator was designed for this load. Let it do its job.

If you are planning a mast and antenna installation and want it done right, reach out to VCTowers
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05/15/2026

Tape isn’t rated for rigging. For a 3 pound TV antenna, it was perfect.

This is where tower work gets to have a little fun. Lightweight TV antenna, 75 ohm coax, 45 feet up. Ground guy couldn’t rig from the top — cheap plastic clip on the antenna would have come apart — so he taped it up and sent it. I grabbed it, untaped it, and installed it. Two people, zero drama, antenna on the wall.

The rigging decision matches the load. A capstan hoist and a tram line for a 3 pound antenna would be overkill. Tape sent it up clean and safe and we all went home on time. Knowing the difference between those two scenarios is the job.

Sometimes the antenna weighs less than your lunch
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05/15/2026

145 feet to change two lightbulbs. This time we actually show you the lightbulbs

Steel band off, red glass off, old bulb out, new LED in — times two because it’s a dual arm fixture. Then everything goes back exactly the way it came off. Verified power at the top before we came down.

The bulb swap takes four minutes. The climb is what takes time

Some jobs look simple from the ground. This one actually is simple. Just not from the ground
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05/14/2026

That’s gonna be a problem.

I wiggle the coax and it pulls straight out of the connector. Center pin still attached to the cable. On a six meter stacked Yagi power divider on a rotating tower. That’s not a loose connection — that’s a failed one, and it’s been failed long enough that nobody noticed the performance was gone.

Eight connectors total reterminated that day. Four of them done at height in cold Maine wind with a mini butane torch inside a cut-open tower bucket we rigged as a wind block just to hold enough heat to flow solder. You work with what the job gives you.

This is what a routine service call turns into when nobody has been on that tower in a while.

The coax doesn’t lie.
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05/14/2026

Most of the R25/45/55g towers we encounter don’t have a safety climb

Rohn 25, 45, 55G — guyed towers. No fall arrest rail, no cable system, no sleeve to grab. They do sell kits for them, but usually the stakeholders find them too expensive. You click clack the whole way with dual leg fall arrest hooks, 100% tied off to the structure. It’s slower. It’s deliberate. And on a 200 foot tower with no safety climb, you’re doing that math before you ever leave the ground because climb time is real time and real time costs money.

This is raw uncut descent footage from about 50 feet. No cuts, no edits, just what it actually looks like to come down a tower when there’s nothing else to catch you.

And yes — those are sneakers. Our gear shipped down to Florida for a two day job last week and one of the Pelican cases got delayed in transit. Been without my work boots for over a week. The work doesn’t wait. And climbing with Chippewas is horrendous.
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05/14/2026

We work on the secure side. When your comms are broken, we fix them.

New antenna, new coax run, new radio, new side mount — one visit to a general aviation facility that needed a full air to ground communications upgrade. The old system was failing. We replaced all of it.

VCTowers solves communications problems at airports, hangars, and secured facilities. If your system is overdue for a look, reach out.
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145 feet to change two light bulbs. And we charged $20,000.Just kidding, we didn’t charge $20k, but the FAA obstruction ...
05/13/2026

145 feet to change two light bulbs. And we charged $20,000.

Just kidding, we didn’t charge $20k, but the FAA obstruction lighting on a guyed tower doesn't get serviced from a ladder. We climbed it, pulled the old bulbs, installed the client-supplied LEDs, verified power at the top, and confirmed both lights operational before we came down. On the way down we found a couple of nicks in the power cable — weathersealed on site before we left. That's the kind of thing you only find when someone actually climbs the structure.

The light at the top of a tower isn't decorative. It's a federal requirement when you are close to an active militarized airspace. When it goes dark, the clock starts. VCTowers services obstruction lighting at height — inspection, bulb replacement, wiring assessment, and documentation. If your tower light is out or overdue for service, reach out.

Some jobs look simple from the ground
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05/12/2026

What kind of dinosaur is this? Found in Lubec, Maine



05/05/2026

Rope management at the end of the day is just as important as rigging at the start. Clip a carabiner high, route it through, coil it clean - back in the box ready for the next job. No mess. We judge on how you put your gear away

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