[TowerTalk] Tubular Tower

[Dudley Chapman]

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 11:29:21 EST
From: NPAlex at aol.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Build your own Square Needle
To: towertalk at contesting.com, mjweaver at fmtcs.com
Message-ID: <2c8.5ab92a2.314ee0e1 at aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

In a message dated 3/19/2006 10:35:44 AM Eastern Standard Time,
towertalk-request at contesting.com writes:

I would like to fabricate a tubular tower similar to a Wilson TT-45
(crank-up, fold-over). I would appreciate any information were I could
obtain construction plans.
Thanks
Mike
K?BGP


Back in the 80s there was an article in Ham Radio Magazine about building
towers out of steel pipe.  The designs were tilt-over, not crank-ups, and
they were nested sections of pipe with decreasing diameter.  The OM who
wrote the article gave design formulas for calculating how long each tubular
section had to be, given the desired height.  He had de-rated the material
strength to allow for using used pipe. 

These towers were quite simple to construct if you knew a good welder, but
they were very heavy.  I used to have an ancient piece of Basic code that
did the calculations, but that was way back in the DOS days. 

I wonder if anyone here knows about this article or could comment if these
towers were practical?  I might be interested in making one, and it might be
of interest to Mike, too.

Dudley - WA1X