[TowerTalk] Guying a self-supporting tower - NO

[Steve Maki]

K7LXC at aol.com wrote:

>> As you may remember from earlier conversations I'm erecting a 100' self 
>> supporting tower but am going to guy in two places basically for the safety of the 
>> climbers, to make sure it would not fall across pwr lines, ensure it would 
>> land on my neighbors property, and my own peace of mind.

> Hi, Mark --
> 
>     Don't screw up. DO NOT guy it. Your reasons are not valid or 
> substantiated by engineering considerations or calculations. 

Since this has been discussed extensively before, I hesitate to
ask this....

But I would really like to see an example (with a little analysis)
of a self support structure of ANY kind that is compromised by
sensible guy wires. By "sensible" I mean guy angles that are not
steep, and guy strand that is sized for the structure *top*, and 
pre-tensioned at normal values. I'm really curious about this. I've
seen lot's of pronouncements, but little substance to support the
idea that self support structures should never be guyed. I fully
understand that some might be wary of the issues because of the
idea that encouraging overloading of towers might result, but this
is an interesting topic, academically.

For the purpose of illustration, it might be reasonable to take a 
parameter to the the extreme, to see where the fault line is. For
the life of me, I can't imagine what it is.

Steve K8LX