[Towertalk] 'Toes' of a tower concrete base

[Chuck Sudds]

At 08:15 AM 6/29/02 -0400, you wrote:

And out here in the cornfields of Iowa, you can't even find anyone to CLIMB
the damned things and give you a hand fixing stuff up top!!   When you do,
that'll cost you a month's salary too!!  Where is the "helping ham" when
you need him/her now days????

I thought that someone was compiling a list of qualified
tower-climbers/installers for all parts of the country.  Steve???

Chuck  KØTVD

>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