[TowerTalk] Broken Self Supporting Crank Up Tower

[Alan AB2OS]

I just came from looking at the specs for the AN Wireless 
self-supporting towers (www.anwireless.com). I had been thinking of a 
60' tower to support my 3-el SteppIR (by no means large: less than 7 sq. 
ft.), but I found that the max. surface area one of their 60' Light Duty 
models will support with 90mph winds is less than 1 sq. ft.!

If I want to put this antenna on a tower in this location (Ottawa Co., 
W. Michigan), I must either settle for a 50' Light Duty tower or put out 
almost $1000 more for the 60' Heavy Duty model. The foundation 
requirements are different too.

Alan AB2OS


On 06/11/04 08:43 pm Wendell Wyly - W5FL put fingers to keyboard and 
launched the following message into cyberspace:

> Driving home today after a recent thunderstorm, I saw a crank up
> (telescoping triangular tower) BROKEN completely in two pieces with the beam
> hanging nearly on the ground.  This was a fairly heavy duty tower with only
> a tri-bander on it and only about a 50 foot tower.  He needs a crane to get
> it down now.
> 
> Never ceases to amaze me that it takes me 8 5/16 EHS guys to hold my Rohn 45
> tower and small 2 element quad antenna  and others seem to think a little
> piece of concrete is going to hold their crank up towers in the extended
> position indefinitely.  I am sure the load was only 6-8 sq feet, but that
> was enough.