Towertalkies:
How about this one-
I do alot of tower work for my two way radio business, and recently picked
up a new Low Band customer (31 mhz). He has a 110 foot Rohn 25g tower that
has been up for 14 years. It is guyed approximately 20 feet up in 2 long
dead trees with cheapo 3/8 eye screws, no turnbuckles, no guy crips or
clamps (has unknown type of crimp connectors on guys-looks like large non
insulated butt splices to me), uses 1/8" solid hardware store style guy
wire, a large Ash tree grew around one set of guys and everytime the wind
blows it slaps the three guy wires, 4 of the guys have approximately 12" sag
on the total length, the base is 2 feet deep (according to him), and it only
has occasional bolts installed in the sections (viewed with binoculars), and
to top it all off it's not grounded at all either.
The customer doesn't understand why the whole thing has to come down and be
redone completely, he's perfectly content with what he has!
Think this would classify as one of those Condor Lift jobs ????
If I ever tried to jury rig something like this, guaranteed it would fall
down the next day. :)
73,
Scott KA1CLX
P.S. This tower was put up by a "professional"
At 12:40 AM 3/22/97 +0000, Jim Stahl wrote:
> A few weeks ago there was a post (imported from another group) by an
>obviously inexperienced person who wanted to put up some sort of house
>bracketed tower.
>
> Shortly after that I ran across an article in Radio World (a
>broadcasting trade paper) by a Troy Conner of Tower Maintenance Specialists.
>He had been asked to look this tower over by a small church that thinking of
>buying it along with a radio station. Here are the some excerpts;
>unfortunately I'm not able to reproduce several photographs from the
>original article.
>
>
>
> ..."a small guyed tower 140 feet tall, with a face width of 12 inches.
>The structure was stayed by four guy levels, with three cables at each
>level. A folded AM radiator was installed on the structure."
>
> "Even at a distance, I could see that this tower had a serious problem.
>The top 20 feet was canted about 10 or 15 degrees out of plumb. Closer
>examination made the problems of this tower even more evident.
>
> ..."Starting at the ground, I examined three guy anchors. While the
>connections were in fair shape, the cable tensions were horribly low. At
>the base of the tower, I was in for my next surprise. Normally, a tower is
>firmly bolted to the concrete foundation pier. In this case, the tapered
>base section actually stood on the top of the anchor bolts. Nothing
>prevented the tower from merely falling off the pier.
>
> " The concrete foundation peir had been poured inside an 18-inch
>galvanized culvert pipe, which extended about 4 feet above grade. In
>addition to being too small and protruding way too far above ground, the
>pier appeared to have shifted slightly downhill, causing a distinct lean.
>
> "...Examining the first splice, I noted that the bolt holes between
>sections did not appear to line up. As a result, the original crew had used
>smaller diameter bolts. Later, the manufacturer of these sections told me
>that their towers must be assembled in sequence, although the sections
>appear identical. Not only were bolts used in only about half of the holes;
>the bolts themselves were too short, often only catching part of the nut.
>
> "At 100 feet, I decided to climb no further. At this point, the tower
>was held together tenuously by one bolt on one leg, two U-bolts haphazardly
>around the second leg, and a turnbuckle on the third. Apparently, the crew,
>having run out of sections from one manufacturer, simply created this fine
>interface in order to use some handy sections from another company.
>
> "The piece de resistance was the old rusted come-along with two of the
>four cable strands broken. In lieu of bolts, this splendid arrangement had
>been contrived to connect the seventh and eighth sections. The top 40 feet
>of tower did not appear to have any splice bolts; only gravity and friction
>held the sleeve-type connections between sections."
>
>
>
>
> I hope your towers don't fit the above description!
>
>Jim Stahl K8MR
>
>
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>
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