Worth a try. The towers I've been able to get free just kinda fell into my lap. Not literally.

No...but I showed up to buy a tower a guy advertised...and when he showed me the rest of his fathers shack I said "Oh my God what a wonderful bunch of junk..."

And he replied "I hoped I'd get someone like you to take this all away..."

Make sure it's worth going after.  They might say yes, just to get you to  haul away a rusted pile of junk for them.

I think I told this story once before.  My friend Dave and I knocked on a couple ham's doors when we were around 15, like 1979, just because they had big antennas and towers and we wanted to see their stations.

One was elderly and had the ultimate basement of boatanchors and real RTTY hardware.  He was in MARS.

The other had a nice modern shack and an M16 hanging on the wall!  I didn't think anything of it then but I bet he was a Vietnam vet.  I wish I knew the whole story because he told us to not mention it to anybody.

Ask away about about your find, you might be pleasantly surprised.

What did you end up with?

Ask anyways. 6 hams means MOAR equipment they are just begging to have taken away! Seriously though, Dad, Mom and four kids and maybe Dad is the only one interested or dis-interested at this point.

I'm going to agree with this.  Worst case you have a short conversation meeting another ham and leave.

Trailer mounted tower usually means some type of emergency response team like ARES/RACES or one heck of a Field Day setup!

More than I paid for.

God bless you Amos, may your spare parts live forever.

I've been meaning to ask someone down the street. Never have seen the tower cranked up (not that I do the crank up tower thing) but no one is registered at that address (permanently at least). 2m beam and a few other goodies.

When yoou see a tower that looks unused, offer to remove it.

We see a good tower, most people see eyesores.

Knock away, you may gain a new friend/ally if things go bad!  Hams love to talk!  
I have a couple hams in the area, and I heard one on 10m but did not return his call.  

Bill

I wish that I could find a new house with a tower.  The SOP for most house sales after a ham goes SK is the realtor telling the family the tower has to go.  

I know that the market appeal is limited with a tower but it would be great if they would put it on the market or give hams a chance before removing it.  I have actually told a few hams to suggest to their families to call me if they SK and want to sell.  

If you are involved in the local ham radio community, towers are often available for free...............or almost free. You typically have to take them down, which is far from free.

Over the years I have had the opportunity to get many "free" towers.
It is fairly common for a local ham to die, and his widow contacts the local radio club to get rid of the tower. The widow wants it gone.

The problem I always had is that I never had anyone to help me get it down. I know a lot of hams, but when you start talking about taking down a tower, the number of people willing to help you dwindles.
Of course safety is a huge issue as well as having the equipment: climbing belt, tower jack, gin pole, some way to haul it away................................

Other than if someone dies, there are people moving that need to get rid of a tower in order to sell the house. And again, you usually find out about this because you are active in the local ham community. It is pretty obvious that if you are trying to sell a tower, this typically is a local thing. Not many people are willing to go take down a tower hundreds of miles away and then get it home.
Last year, a buddy of mine went back and forth with a guy for a month about a really nice 70' crankup tower. The guy was moving and needed to get rid of the tower. He was selling it; not giving it away free. But as time went on he became desperate to get rid of it. The price kept coming down. It started out that you had to take it down, later he offered to help take it down. As time moved on he offered to take it down himself and all you had to do was come and get it and haul it away. FWIW: my buddy never did get it because he didn't have any way to haul it It was pretty far away and he didn't have the means to haul it. That is how I became involved, he wanted me to go with him and use my truck.



As was mentioned, if you knock on the door, you may not get a tower but you might make some new friends. The last place I lived, I did that. I drove past a guy's house all the time that had a lot of really cool homebrew antennas. I knew enough about the subject that I knew these antennas may have been homebrew but they were pretty high end antennas. He had a four-square array on 40 meters as well as a 160m vertical. All made from stuff like irrigation pipe. One day I was driving by and the guy was outside in the driveway. I stopped and asked about the antennas and I got a couple hour lecture about them. The guy was retired from the defense industry. The homebrew antennas were very sophisticated and he explained the theory behind them and the test equipment he used to build them.
Was well worth stopping.

Another guy had FIVE, FULL SIZED verticals on 160 meters.

I would have never met either of those guys if I hadn't stopped and knocked.

Yeah, I need to find a local ham that's younger than me, so I can leave their name when I go SK. It'd be a shame for everything "OLD" I have to get tossed in the garbage because "it's all vacuum tubes, and those are old."

OK, you go to the house and ask and one out of three things are going to happen.

1. Take a hike

3. Take it! Get it off the property!

2. They will IMMEDIATELY decide that it's worth a million dollars and offer to sell it to you.

in the event of #1, take a hike.

in the event of #2 take the thing and run.

In the event of #3 hand them your card and tell them to call you when they change their mind. Odds are pretty good they'll call, ESPECIALLY if the wife gets her way.

Have done. It worked out. I'd love a mobile trailer-mounted crank-up.

I've got one in the works right now..
50" of Rhon 25 in good shape. Couple stand-offs mounted on it.
I climbed 2-3 sections last fall to eyeball the hardware & it looks like it'll come apart without too much trouble.
All I need is a gin pole & a tower jack and some decent WX & that puppy's coming home whit me.
I have a Mosley TA-33 for 10 / 15 / 20 M that's gonna get hard mounted looking NNE till I can come up with a rotor.

My neighbor and I had been eyeing a nice commercially built trailer mount tower in the lot of one of the local oilfield service companies for a couple years, going completely unused.     Finally he managed to catch someone with the ability to make a decision.     The price wasn't free but he got a helluva good buy for what it is, a real nice self contained unit, and in an unrelated bargain he scored a nice 2 el. tribander which will be able to ride the trailer with minimal disassembly.