[TowerTalk] Wind Gauges: Summary

[Dave D'Epagnier]

What wind gauges hold up in tornado/cat5 hurricane force winds?

At this site (owned by W0UR) we do plan for 140+ winds. They happen every
year here. It hasn't taken down the tower yet in 30 years*. The tower is
160' of Rohn-25G, guyed at 7 levels. The beam antenna is a home brew Yagi
tribander with ½" diameter tapered solid stainless steel whip tip sections
that are about 6' long. They really take the teeth out of the wind gusts. I
don't want to deal with insurance companies if I don't have to. I want a
wind gauge that will hold up. I guess I'll call the local airport manager
and see what they use.

Thanks,

Dave
K0QE

*Actually the top 20' of this tower did come down about 20 years ago when in
a freak accident the roof of a building about a mile away blew off and
clipped one of the top guy wires. The sections came down and remain twisted
almost beyond recognition down the hillside nearby.
	----------
	From:  Guy Olinger, K2AV [SMTP:k2av@contesting.com]
	Sent:  Wednesday, January 19, 2000 12:10 PM
	To:  towertalk@contesting.com
	Subject:  Re: [TowerTalk] Wind Gauges: Summary


	Another way to express your concern: what wind gauges hold up in
	tornado/cat5 hurricane force winds? Actually, at my place, we're not
	planning for 140+ mph. Might take down the tower, or trash a lot of
	stuff on it, in addition to the wind vane.

	That's the roll of the dice...will I catch a tornado...will a
category
	5 hurricane make it 200 miles inland at full force? Either of those,
	my insurance will probably be replacing my house, all it's contents,
	in addition to the tower, and the weather vane would be but one line
	on a long list of damaged/ruined/missing goods. Additionally in such
a
	case, I hope I and mine lived through the blow to participate in the
	rebuild. People get killed.

	I suspect you were getting microbursts, unless you know you took on
a
	tornado.

	A microburst collapsed a brick wall on top of a full school
cafeteria
	and killed eleven (?) children (upstate NY, 1988 or thereabouts).

	I think you need a professional NWS rated device for those kinds of
	winds. Prepare to spend money. Manufacturers engineering for the
home,
	consumer market will not add the beef (and the cost). It won't sell
	broadly at the elevated price. Call the airport manager at the
nearest
	controlled airport and see what they use.

	On Wed, 19 Jan 2000 10:59:47 -0700, you wrote:

	>
	>Which wind gauges hold up real good in high winds? We've had two at
our site
	>in Boulder and both have been destroyed in high winds. Both times
the chart
	>recorder indicated a pegged reading at 140MPH+ just before the time
of
	>destruction.
	>
	>--Dave
	>K0QE
	>
	>	----------
	>	

	--.  .-..
	73, Guy

	Guy Olinger, K2AV
	k2av@contesting.com
	Apex, NC, USA

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