In recent years, I have seen the suggestion that using the torque arms eliminates the possibility that the guy wires could "chew" their way through the tower bracing or legs. I could imagine this ha
I think you're over-generalizing this topic. On larger commercial towers, one ALMOST never sees guy brackets encircling the tower (except for the guy levels requiring a 6-way star guy). The normal at
Fiberglass guy rod is in the same ballpark as EHS steel in terms of tensile strength, so I'm not surprised at what you've found so far. -Steve K8LX Which is stronger, 1 inch 6061-T6 solid rod...... o
For GPS to determine azimuth the observer must be moving. That works fine in a vehicle, but not when you're walking. Ask me how I know. :) Or you must have two GPS antennas in one unit, separated by
The best way, if you have visible items in satellite maps on Google Earth, is to use the built-in distance and bearing facility. map length to "feet" click the cross-hair over spot 1, then click cro
As KK9A mentioned, the surplus market for 7/8" and larger coax will be gradually drying up in the future. Virtually all new cell site builds are utilizing tower top radios connected via fiber. 1/2" i
Yup. The only coax we're installing nowadays is to replace damaged stuff. On new builds and upgrades, we run "hybrid" cable which is (12-18) fibers and multiple power pairs. The driver here is to get
No. New large coax will be manufactured for a long time, because the cell industry is not the only customer. It's just that pricing will rise for both surplus and new. Supply and demand. Steve K8LX S
Gary-Joe, I'd say 99.5% of the installed 50 ohm hardline base (by footage) is copper. Commscope tried their darndest to introduce their smoothwall hardline (both copper and aluminum) to the cellular
In fact you could pull the pin out and it would be fine, unless someone drove a tractor into the tower. Steve K8LX There is no tension on a pier pin, only shear, and hopefully not much if the tower i
Cell sites are generally pretty quiet. The whole site pretty much runs on batteries. Tower top equipment is always connected via fiber data lines and -48VDC power lines. RF amp outputs always go thru
The one exception to this are microwave backhaul dishes on sites that aren't connected to the regional switch via fiber. Quite often the dish is connected to the shelter via CAT5 cable. -Steve K8LX T
One other thing I should mention: the term cell site can be a little ambiguous. Cell carriers share tower space with other services that might be a little less careful with their systems. If a carrie
I'd guess that the loss is a bit lower than AVA5, given the .91 VF and construction style. Spaced disc 75 ohm cable was popular in Cable TV distribution until plants ran up against the upper frequenc
I've always thought that in some situations the slop between the sections in crank-ups is NOT friendly to rotators. The antenna comes to a sudden stop up against the UN-moveable bottom section, where
Thanks, but my question was not about tubing or masts. My question was about GRC vs. IMC for mounting pipes. Please elucidate what GRC and IMC are. I was unable to google either of them and get the
Amen. Amen. -Steve K8LX OT: The standard format going back at least 35 years (I didn't get on the internet until 1983) is to put a "greater than" (">") plus a space at the beginning of each quoted li
Bob, I suspect the problem is that this reflector, like many, works with plain text, and does not support HTML. 73, Jim K9YC I use some characters to mark whats new like >>> or ## Please don't :-) Pl
Both of you are way more ME than I am, but I saw (& was hired to remove) a bent (crumpled right between the support tube and rotator) pointy top R25 top section with a tall heavy duty mast inserted o
What do you tower climbers use for lanyards and connecting hardware? I recently bought a harness but the lanyard is a fall restraint lanyard from the back. I have seen rope lanyards used but they loo