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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The photos in the article were pretty scary. Whoever built that tower
should be banned from future work.
--
Joe Leikhim
Jleikhim@nettally.com
"tv dinner by the pool,
i'm so glad i finished school" -F.Zappa 1967
"The Revolution will NOT be televised" -Gil Scott Heron
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/towertalkfaq.html
Submissions: towertalk@contesting.com
Administrative requests: towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: owner-towertalk@contesting.com
Sponsored by: Akorn Access, Inc. & N4VJ / K4AAA
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