Hi Glenn,
100' should be fine. They'll be so close together that I won't need much
height.
I've heard good things about AN towers lately. They are on my list of
companies to check out.
What I was hoping to get from you guys is ideas on what kinds of towers I
should look at and why....
thanks,
marlon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Glenn Thorne" <gathorne@traer.net>
To: "Marlon K. Schafer" <ooe@odessaoffice.com>; <towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 10:43 AM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] tower advice and suggestions
> Hi Marlon,
>
> How tall will the towers be? If you're looking at 120 ft or less you
> might take a look at AN Wireless.
>
> 73, Glenn/.KD0Q
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marlon K. Schafer" <ooe@odessaoffice.com>
> To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 11:00 AM
> Subject: [TowerTalk] tower advice and suggestions
>
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I'm working on a grant application for a network expansion and I could
>> use
>> some advice on the towers.
>>
>> Our ground out here is either sandy, solid rock, soil (farm ground) or
>> soil
>> and rock mix (also farm ground :-P).
>>
>> I'll want the ability to put a distribution omni near the top (basically
>> no
>> wind load), 3 sector antennas roughly 8" by 6" by 2'. Around half way
>> we'll
>> want to run backhaul antennas (don't need to go to the top because we'll
>> have the towers no more than 15 miles apart). The backhaul antennas will
>> be
>> 3 3' dish antennas and 3 2' dish antennas per tower. There will also be
>> the
>> radio units themselves and those boxes are about 1'x1'x4" on average. So
>> there will be from 6 to 15 of them per tower.
>>
>>>From talking to my rep at Hutton it looks like there are two pretty good
>> choices for me. Both free standing towers and mono poles.
>>
>> The free standing towers would make it easier to add things like ham
>> repeaters, public safety systems etc.
>>
>> The mono poles are nearly half the money. I don't know what the cost of
>> mounting accessories would add though.
>>
>> I do NOT want to use guyed towers if I can help it. No matter what I
>> always
>> seem to end up with a link that has to shoot through the guy wires. grrr
>>
>> We're in a 70mph wind zone here, though I've seen it hit 100 in the last
>> few
>> years. No tornadoes etc. though.
>>
>> What would you guys use? What factors affect your decision making
>> process?
>>
>> And FYI, the motor home emergency communications project is coming along,
>> slowly but it's moving. We did use it to provide free internet to people
>> at
>> a couple of motorbike races about a month ago. I learned that 3 group 27
>> batteries take a LONG time to re-charge once they've been pulled
>> completely
>> down. And they go down at a surprisingly high rate when you leave the
>> furnace on in a 29' motorhome! Using the DC charging port on a Honda 1kw
>> generator only give you 8 amps of charge. But the 4kw (built in and much
>> noisier!) unit will charge at 45 amps! Even with BOTH running it takes
>> the
>> better part of 4 hours to bring the batteries full up to speed.
>>
>> I've decided to install a 3' x 16" x 3" weather tight box on top of the
>> motorhome. I'll run a conduit from the cupboard that the radios will be
>> in
>> to the box on the top. That will allow us to easily make changes to the
>> antennas without having much to worry about when it comes to water
>> getting
>> into the coach. It'll also leave the inside looking as un cluttered as
>> possible and that'll be a good thing for momma!
>>
>> The mast I built onto the coach (mostly for my backhaul high speed data
>> antennas) turned out to be pretty easy. I built a couple of brackets
>> that
>> attached to the back of the coach (lag screwed into the solid wood
>> framework). They have u-bolts welded on and are painted body color so
>> they
>> don't look bad at all. I then used a mix of galvanized EMT, fence pipe
>> and
>> aluminized exhaust pipe. I welded nuts to the largest pipe (two of them,
>> 6"
>> apart), I made a couple of t-handled bolts to fit the nuts. The middle
>> pipe
>> and the top pipe are able to be pinned (with captive spring pins like
>> you'd
>> use on a trailer hitch to keep the couple from rattling loose) at pre set
>> heights. I painted two bands on the inside pipes so that I could tell
>> when
>> I was about out of room to push them up.
>>
>> All pipes fit with almost no clearance, just enough to slide them up
>> easily.
>> The inside most pipe is 2" o.d. so everything is strong enough that I
>> don't
>> have to guy it, even with 2' grid antennas (two of them) on it. I didn't
>> put the system all of the way up this time, and I didn't have both
>> antennas
>> at the very top. But we did have 40ish mph winds and there was NO sign
>> of
>> anything loosening up and no damage to anything at all. I can take this
>> system up to nearly 30' above the ground and it still collapses small
>> enough
>> that I can store it underneath if I choose to! If it's left on the coach
>> there are NO tools needed to raise and lower the mast and it can be
>> turned
>> 360* once it's up to the height that I want it at.
>>
>> At some point I may drill some holes in the second pipe so that I can
>> raise
>> it then pin it before tightening the t-handled bolts. This would make it
>> quite a bit easier to aim the antennas when needed, now I have to hold
>> everything up and turn, then tighten. I may also add a brace from the
>> bottom bracket to the bumper so that I can confidently stand on the upper
>> bracket while working on things. I don't think I've even got $100 into
>> the
>> mast so far!
>>
>> laters,
>> marlon
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> TowerTalk mailing list
>> TowerTalk@contesting.com
>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>>
>
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|