[TowerTalk] Commercial Towers

[JRH]

My curiosity got the best of me the other day and I stopped and had
a look at this commercial tower site. They had 20 hardline cables
as big as my arm running up next to one of the tower legs. Seems to
me they should have distributed the weight of those cables amoung
the legs of the tower but I see none of these sites do that. Each
leg of the tower was round in shape and had what looked like a small
copper wire to ground. Seems to me that copper strap would have been
a better choice. I have copper strap attached to my tower legs using
Polyphaser type hose clamps with a piece of stainless steel between
the copper strap and the tower leg. 

All cables go through ICE blocks where the braids are grounded and
also the rotor cable uses an ICE block where each lead is shunted
to ground AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TOWER.
I physically disconnect cables in the shack from rigs
and also unplug gear when I think the boomers are getting too close. 

I have four packet radio's running for my dx packet node and the
kicker is: I shuntfeed my tower for 160m and have no problem with rf
getting into the radio's. Packet antennas are attached at the top of
the crankup tower sections so I can crank the tower down. I worried
about this the most when I was active on 160 but I never had a problem
with it.

Ron, K6UR

--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/FAQ/towertalk
Submissions:              towertalk@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-towertalk@contesting.com