[CQ-Contest] Aluminum Towers (Tower Survey)

[Harry Brown]

Bruce,

Aluma Towers in Vero Beach, Florida make aluminum towers and there are many 
of them in use Florida by a lot of hams. We have a winter home there and 
are .7 miles from the Atlantic ocean in Satellite Beach. It's about half 
way down the Florida peninsula. I've had it up for a couple of years 
without any apparent deterioration and it was used for several years before 
I obtained it. Down the block from me is another of their towers that has 
been up for close to 20 years. We don't get salt spray directly but there 
is enough salt in the air that non-treated or coated metals do not last long.

Aluminum towers can stand up in some fairly tropical areas.

Aluma's web page is at http://www.alumatower.com/

Best of luck.

73, Harry, W3IIT

At 08:35 AM 9/25/2003 -0700, Bruce Sawyer wrote:
>After reading the testimonial from N0WY on his aluminum Universal Towers
>15-50, I was intrigued at reading some of the spec sheets on this series of
>towers.  (See http://www.texastowers.com/b30.htm, for example.)  I wonder,
>however, if anybody here has had experience with aluminum towers in a
>tropical, seaside setting?  How well does unanodized aluminum stand up to
>persistent salt spray in a high-humidity, warm-temperature setting?  I can
>tell you from experience that Rohn 45G does NOT do well in that setting!  I
>have a 45G tower that is about 4 years old now and doesn't look like it's
>going to last longer than another 4 years unless I start taking aggressive
>action to protect it.  I know W2GD paints his tower at least once a year on
>P4, and I've heard Jacky paints his twice a year.  Plus, the story has made
>the rounds that Jacky has been trying to devise an automatic sprinkler
>system to wash the salt spray off his tower.  Would an aluminum tower avoid
>all that grief, or would it be even worse than galvanized steel?
>
>Bruce, N6NT/ZF2NT
>
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