[Towertalk] Guy Anchor Question

[K7LXC@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/3/02 9:23:51 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
na9d@speakeasy.net writes:

> I am shortly going to be putting up my first real tower - 5 sections of Rohn
>  25.
>  
>  I plan on guying the tower with two sets of guys per Rohn specs.  My
>  question is about anchoring them.  I have purchased Rohn GA5604 screw
>  anchors.  The specs on these say that they have 2500 pounds worth of 
holding
>  power.  I was actually surprised when I received them at how small the 
screw
>  portion was.
>  
>  My question is this:  Are these sufficient for my tower installation or do 
I
>  need to think about digging a hole and putting these anchors in concrete?  
I
>  was originally planning on doing this but now I am wondering if I need to 
go
>  through all that extra work.

    No, they're not sufficient. Yes, do the extra work. 

    Fifty-feet of 25G has 2 sets of guys; the maximum guywire strength at the 
anchor before failure is 8,000 pounds. This is SIGNIFICANTLY more than the 
capacity of the screw-in anchors. Even if you used one screw-in per guy, 
you'd still have a mismatch. I'll sure someone will mention screw-in creep 
due to wet soil conditions. 

    Concrete uber alles.

Cheers,
Steve    K7LXC
TOWER TECH