[Towertalk] 'Toes' of a tower concrete base

[David Jordan]

YUP, I don't disagree with any of your comments but you have a pretty 
narrow mined view, prolly because you're so into the business of  HAM 
RADIO.  

Lots of hams these days are retired and on fixed incomes...as you say 
it's easy to find the $150 tower but the $1,000 plus expense for 
installation makes the tower project out of reach for some.  If folks 
don't  buy towers because of the overall expense i.e. the cost of the 
associated materials, like concrete, then less towers get sold.  That's 
a macro view.  Something many, if not most, of the folks in the radio 
business fail to develop and is also the reason so many of them 
 eventually fail....the examples are numerous.

Believe it or not for some retired ham $75 is a big deal.  If you 
weren't an executive at WCOM, XEROX or ENRON and you were considering  a 
tower project I'll bet those "BIG DEAL" cost you mention become show 
stoppers!

Ref. you comments on the design engineers.  Again, you have to consider 
where they are coming from. The Toe design is the optimal configuration. 
 It's not the only one.  

The companies that sell and build these towers aren't interested in 
providing a multiple choice selection for their customers when it comes 
to base installations.  They want to pay the engineer once and leave it 
to the tower owner to make the choices or look for the options, etc. I 
wouldn't expect anything different.  Those engineers charge $$ for those 
designs.  Prolly upwards of $1.00 a minute.

THE POINT IS  that it's significantly more expensive to install a tower 
today than it was 30 yrs ago when most hams were working and bringing 
home good salaries.  My 1st tower cost me $195 new and $30 later it was 
installed.  The last tower I bought cost $28,500.  I don't think the 
average, retired ham  would disagree that a couple hundred bucks for a 
back-hoe is unreasonable for what it can do, that is obvious.  The point 
is the stuff adds up and for some, perhaps many those costs make the 
project beyond their reach, DUH!

73s,
dave
wa3giin