Tom's initial post..heavily snipped:
I plan to clear an appropriate radius
about the tower to permit antenna rotation only. Given this situation,
would a
freestanding tower be preferred over guyed?
Jake wrote:
Tom,
>> Looks like you've got LOT'S of hints on the concrete end of the
>> project. Nothing on the trees though. When you trim the trees, don't
>> stop at just the clearance for turning the antennas. Them puppies
>> grow! (Trees and antennas). I think I'd trim at least twice what I
>> needed, if not more. One of the locals I know seems to be trimming
>> his trees for clearance every other year.
Steve wrote:
I'd say yes. A tree falling on a guy wire will pull the whole tower down;
I'm currently involved with an insurance claim for a really nice, very
populated contest tower where that very thing happened.
And I'm chiming in...
although I wrote privately to Tom on a possible strategy...having
lost a 100' stick to a falling tree, I thought I would wade in on this
aspect.
Guyed towers in thick woods are very hard to work with. You need
to clear the guy radius at a minimum. If you want to be conservative,
you also need to clear the fall radius for the nearby trees.
My 100' ab621 guyed military tower went to full height and final winter
guying on 3Oct02. Job completed at 1500. At 0300 on 4oct02, the backwash
of a hurricane blew through VT, and dropped an oak across a guyset.
The result was a $5500 insurance claim, and being cancelled by the
insurance company which had carried my business for 30 years. House
insurance
is now twice as expensive as it was, even though I no longer live near the
forest-infested property. Won't go down until 3 years have elapsed.
SO: I am in favor of self-supporting towers in the woods.
Also...if it's a small beam, I advocate using a large tree to hold
up the tower. Won't go into techniques, but I've seen it done,
successfully.
It's inexpensive, and naturally camoflaged.
THAT ought to stir up controversy.
n2ea
jimjarvis@ieee.org
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