[TowerTalk] TOWER HEATER???

[Tower (K8RI)]

> What is the best way (IF any) to keep your tower from icing
> in the winter???
> You Canadian boys found a way to prevent this yet??

Towers really don't ice up in the winter *except* during an ice storm.  It's 
far harder on the antennas than the tower.

We had an ice storm (believe it was in 76) that took out over a mile of 
power line just to the West of me.  The lines had over 3" of ice on them. In 
the wind it busted off every one of those poles.  We had a maximum spam 
feeding the power pole. The lines coming up to the poles had stretched to 
the point where the bottom of the catenary was only 3' off the ground 
*after* the ice had melted.

I didn't lose a single tower of antenna, but they looked pretty sick with 
all the ice on them. When the ice fell off they straightened right back up.

When the rain starts freezing I do occasionally think of what I might 
possibly do to prevent it, or get rid of it.

But the straight answer is, nornmally we do nothing.

Roger Halstead (K8RI, EN73 & ARRL Life Member)
N833R, World's Oldest Debonair (S# CD-2)
www.rogerhalstead.com
>
> Thanks!
> Jose - N4BAA
>
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>
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>
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