Outriggers vs stabilizer jacks...
Hey, JohnB and all,
Yah, get a load of some outriggers below. The pic is a tower over 100' tall, with an antenna on top of it. My outriggers would be less substantial. Both the single and double axle CT-70 cuts are of the Tri-Ex LM470 tower of mine. I have sources for HD jacks at Fazzio's, but always looking for ideas...!
My tower presently is laying flat on the Sun-Ray trailer, and there is about a 1/2" bow on the side frame members from the weight! The timbers in the middle are over the "z" channel which provide little support, so it's no wonder they have flexed under the load. Bouncing around like that would definitely fatigue the frame over time. Not ME. (The Star-Ray's weight was evenly distributed over the whole platform and the decking helped.)
Looking at the two cut attachments, the dual-axle cradles the center of the tower over the axles, while the single axle unit cradles the tower closer to the front, nearer to the trailer's fork. Lots of possibilities here. Both are from Tri-Ex at different times.
I would first weld up a 8' high "uni-frame" tilt-down cage, like the attachments show. This is the "Tilt-Over" base, upon which towers of this sort are supported. This base assembly can be then be adapted to the rear of any suitable trailer. But for now, since I have the trailer's title, It may make sense to utilize this trailer, and just modify it to my needs.
My suspension and axles should be beefed up and re positioned someday, (and possibly attached to a slide-able section of framework to allow adjustment of tongue weight according to load). But note, the idea is just to have a tower on a registered trailer, to have at home, and to be able to tow it to a local event. It doesn't have to be perfect.
holmzie N2EXG