[TowerTalk] How much wind load margin with Tri-Ex LM-354 ?

[Allan G. Taylor]

Towertalkians:

	I am planning a tower installation in a few years to include a
significant antenna for 40 and 20. I have noted the price to be quite
reasonable on the Tri-Ex LM-354, rated at 10 sq ft @ 70 mph. The ideal
system to go on a crankup tower would be a Force-12 Magnum 320/340 with a
wind load of 10.7 sq ft, 7% overload on the LM-354. Does anyone out there
have experience with this tower at this level of overload? Should I just 
bite the bullet and get the HD version (20 sq ft), or should I drop back to
an array of 10 sq ft or less? As this QTH will not be the final one (I can't
possibly afford to retire in the East Bay, nor want to), I would like to 
keep the tower expenses to a minimum and just move the arrays to the final
operating QTH, with some additional ones! As a further note, the local 
zoning / planning folks will surely require that I crank it down when not 
'in use', so the typical height of the tower/array will be about 26' and not
54 ft + mast.

	Another option:  are there any crankup (unguyed) towers out there 
of 55 ft or so height that COULD hold an array of ~11 sq ft without going
to a full-on HEAVY DUTY tower?

	I am a beginner at this stuff (in spite of the oldtimer call) and I 
could sure use some advice  from those with more experience putting aluminum
into the sky. It will cost about one years time per $1000 raised for the
project, so

         "TIME IS MONEY"!!


Grant  K7GT


prefer PRIVATE E-MAIL TO:  k7gt@qsl.net  

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