[TowerTalk] Surplus Steel tubing as tower...

[Dan Levin]

I ran across some surplus steel tubing today that might make very
interesting tower material.  This stuff is 9.625" O.D., .545" wall seemless
steel tubing intended for us as piers for buildings.  80,000 psi yield
strength, it comes in 45' average lengths for about $11/foot.  Shipping is
another $400/ton - a ton turns out to be about 73 feet.  So for something
around $2000, you could have a 100' free-standing tubular tower (assuming
that you bury a fair length in concrete for a base).

I used the 'mast' software program to check the wind load, and it says that
20 square feet of antenna at 100' would be a 42,000 psi load at 90 MPH.  So
80,000 psi gives you about a 2x safety factor.  If you could limit yourself
to 10 square feet, you'd have 4x.  All this assumes that I did the math
correctly :-)

Anyway, seemed interesting to me, although I don't really have a place to
put such a beast.  If anyone is interested, I can provide a pointer to the
source.

All the best,

            ***dan, K6IF (ex. N6BZA)


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