Hi All:
After dealing with tower installations for over 25 years I have learned many
lessons. The school of hard knocks will teach you many lessons. Yes, Rohn is
trying to protect their collective " A ". If you had been in court as many
times as they have, for other people's stupidity, you would know why they are
also confused. One of my complaints is that we as human beings, try to save
money. Sometimes we sacrifice safety, for the dollar. Just about every
hardware store in the USA sells Galvanized nuts and bolts. The threads are
slightly under-cut for galvanizing on the bolts and over-cut on the nuts.
All of my towers use American made Stainless steel. All stainless steel nuts
and bolts will also rust. Stainless is not a single alloy. It is made from
combinations of steel alloys. Foreign stainless is more likely to rust.
Remember, Rohn towers were designed for small, commercial, antennas. The
tower is only as strong as the guys and the base.
I do not
represent Rohn,
Bill @
Antenna
Mart
Stan or Patricia Griffiths wrote:
> I have also seen HDBX towers CRASH with nothing more that a TH6DXX on it.
>
> For what its worth, there is a beautiful full color photo in the new Rohn
> $20 catalog showing what appears to be a TH11 mounted on the top of a BX
> tower! There are no words to go with the photo and they make no
> reference to it anywhere in the catalog that I have found. What does all
> of this mean? "A picture is worth a thousand words?" Personally, I
> think it means that Rohn is not paying attention to details and this
> shows an obvious conflict with the written advice they give about using a
> maximum boom length of 10 feet. No mention of element length also shows
> Rohn is not paying attention to what they are saying. So does mean you
> can mount a 40 meter "boomless quad" safely on a BX tower? (Hey, no boom
> at all! Must be OK, right? Sure . . . ) I have grown to expect
> meaningless answers from Rohn whose main concern is covering their own
> butt to try to avoid liability lawsuits. Somewhere down the list . . .
> way down the list . . . is providing customers with useful information
> about installing their towers safely. (Hey, maybe that is not even ON
> the list.)
>
> I asked (offciallly as a Rohn Dealer) why Rohn uses fine thread plated
> bolts on 25G instead of hot dip galvanized coarse thread bolts like on
> the 45G and larger towers. As you have noticed, the 25G plated bolts
> seem to rust a lot quicker than 45G bolts do. Also, you may be aware
> that I supply Rohn bolt kits for people who want them. I was wondering
> if I could actually supply BETTER bolts than Rohn does for 25G. I got a
> really weasel-worded answer. Was I surprised? HA . . . not at all
> surprised. After all, this is Rohn talking. The answer went something
> like this:
>
> The 25G is a 30 year old tower design and we don't remember why fine
> thread bolts were specified. Maybe it was to keep them from falling
> out. To be safe, you should use only what Rohn specifies.
>
> Those were not the exact words but I have definitely captured the essence
> of it. My conclusion is that Rohn will not help me to help my customers
> since it violates their prime objective to keep their butt well covered.
> They DID say the bolts were grade 5 . . .
>
> With that piece of info, I intend to search for some coarse thread bolts
> that are grade 5 and hot dip galvanized to provide with the Rohn
> look-alike towers I will be selling the near future. Incidentally, I
> don't think you can get fine threaded bolts that are hot dip galvanized
> since the galvanizing will fill the fine threads too full and the nuts
> won't go on like they should.
>
> If I am successful in finding what I believe are better bolts, I will
> offer them as kits like I now offer Rohn bolt kits on my web site at
> <www.reprise.com> Keep checking there for new developments in
> sidemounts, bolt kits, and look-alike tower sections.
>
> I normally subscribe to Steve's advice about doing what the manufacturer
> says but how can you when their advice seems to conflict with itself and
> they refuse to explain stuff so you can understand it? I guess if I
> become a manufacturer, then, suddenly, I will be bestowed with some
> fantastic wisdom and you can all safely do as I tell you, right? Right!
>
> There is simply NO SUBSTITUTE for having a knowledgeable PE looking over
> your shoulder when you are designing a tower installation. You have to
> either trust your own judgement or find and hire someone you DO trust.
> Yes, it is expensive. Good, expensive advice is often cheaper than going
> ahead without good advice. Only you know if you can keep yourself out of
> trouble . . . And if you don't know, you probably can't . . .
>
> Enough of my ranting.
>
> Stan w7ni@teleport.com
>
> n4kg@juno.com wrote:
>
> > The 10 ft boom spec is rather arbitrary. For instance, they
> > make no reference to element length, i.e. 20M vs. 2M !
> >
> > The REAL consideration is rotational torque. The C3 is a
> > pretty light antenna with only a 10M director out in front.
> > Having seen TH6's on 24 ft booms survive for years on
> > HDBX towers, I suspect there would be no problem with a C3.
> >
> > de Tom N4KG
> >
> > On Thu, 04 Nov 1999 20:46:04 -0600 Jim <kg9cc@inw.net> writes:
> > >
> > > I know putting a C3 on this tower is exceeding the mfgr specs but
> > > was
> > > wondering if anyone has this combination and if so how it has
> > > survived?
> > > Wind speeds and the like?
> > > Thanks
> > > Jim KG9CC
> > >
> > >
> > > --
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> >
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--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/towertalkfaq.html
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Search: http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search.htm
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