Just been through the process here in Tracy, California for a 70 foot crank
up tower. The key is to go to the City and know your facts first, don't go
to city asking for advice on what to do, you could open a can of worms that
you may not be able to close. Stand in front of a mirror and practice
saying "Antenna Support Structure for Amateur Radio", not tower.
I paid $17.26 to start the permitting process, and 72.31 for the permit.
They will ask if you are using a contractor and the total cost of the job
including Antenna Support Structure, in my case I did everything myself with
the help of friends. The Tower was used and has no value, if you get my
drift! The permit price is directly related to the price of the job. They
have a minimum, which in my case was approximately $600.00 which relates to
a $72.26 permit price.
I would add that The City of Tracy is a particularly "Ham Friendly" city and
actually told me they were, so I never ended up having to do some of the
stuff like a position sketch on a plot map etc.
The only tough time I had was with the City Structural Engineer, he red
inked the hell out of the plans and calculations. He did not like the
tension and compression calculations on the base and found about 3 errors on
the tower manufacturers calculations, plus it did not state if the rebar was
tied and was the rebar weld able. In my case the base has the bolt plate
stitch welded to number 10 rebar and the engineer wanted to see the
calculations for stitch welding and not continuous welding.
I went in to detail on this last part because you might want to get plans
and calculations looked at and corrected by your own Engineer. I was lucky
because my tower is made by Tashjian Towers and Karl Tashjian was very
helpful in putting everything right on the drawings and calculations and
bringing them up to date to conform with the city Engineers calculations at
no cost to me! My friend across town who purchased a brand new tower from
another major tower manufacture here in California was not so lucky in
getting that company to correct their calculations and had to pay 600 bucks
his own Engineer to correct them and consequently has a height limitation.
I would add that the Tracy Engineer is one of the top five structural
Engineers in the country, he consults for Tracy one day a week, he makes his
real money consulting for NASA, so I was unlucky from that point of view.
Poured the concrete today, so 28 days to wait for my erection.
Mike, K6BR
-----Original Message-----
In a message dated 3/24/2009 11:15:20 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
towertalk-request@contesting.com writes:
> On Monday, I had the joy of contacting the Los Angeles County
Planning Department. The question I had was/is; what is(if any) the tower
and
antenna height limit for an AMATEUR RADIO station(operator) living within
Los
Angeles County, in County area(meaning not in an incorporated area)?All
though the
question is simple enough, the answer has not been easy to get, in fact I'm
still waiting for a "corrected" response. The initial response I got from a
"regional planner" was, "communication towers, 35 feet!" I immediately
corrected him and stated its not a "communications tower" but rather a
"Amateur
Radio Tower". He paused and then replied, "oh.... I see, I will have to
look in
to this and I'll get back to you."
> Well, I'm still waiting.
What you do is go down to the LACPD and buy a copy of the building
regulations. Then YOU can figure out what you need. If you ask 3 different
people in the building department a question like this, you'll likely get 3
different interpretations.
Cheers,
Steve K7LXC
TOWER TECH -
Professional tower services for hams
**************Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make dinner for $10
or
less. (http://food.aol.com/frugal-feasts?ncid=emlcntusfood00000001)
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