[TowerTalk] Mast material

[K7LXC at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/26/04 7:14:29 PM Pacific Daylight Time, ab2os at att.net 
writes:

> The chrome-moly tube that is sold specifically for masts is horrendously 
>  expensive, 

    Yes, it's an investment-quality piece of steel but if it's what you need, 
you gotta have it. My own experience is that most guys that buy chromoly 
really don't need it. I've   bought some steel alloy tubing that's 74% as strong 
(good for about 90% of the applications out there) as 115kpsi chromoly and 
costs half as much. 

>  and one of the hams around here decided to use well-casing, 
>  which was far cheaper. Was that a false ecomomy? 

    Isn't well casing just another pipe to carry liquids? They're heavy and 
not strong basically. What is the yield strength of the well casing and what 
sort of load is it carrying? Maybe he just didn't need much of a mast.  

>  What do I really need 
>  to support a 3-el. SteppIR (the other guy had a lot more antenna than 
>  that on his well casing) less than 10ft. above the top of the tower?

    A 3L SteppIR is a pretty small antenna but without knowing your county 
windspeed rating it'd be hard to say. Your rating is available on  <A 
HREF="http://www.championradio.com">www.championradio.com</A> under Tech Notes if you 
don't know. 

Cheers,
Steve     K7LXC
Champion Radio Products
888-833-3104