[TowerTalk] Guyed vs. free-standing

[K7LXC at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/14/2007 8:15:50 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
towertalk-request at contesting.com writes:

>  I see where KA9FOX put up a self supporting 72' Trylon at  his old qth and 
at his new qth, he put up a 95' Rohn 55G.  I know at his  old qth, he didn't 
have the space for the 55G.  Other than the additional  feet between the two, 
what are the advantages of the guyed Rohn tower over the  self-supporting?
 
    Scott has a rotating tower. You can  mount beams anywhere on the tower 
and they'll all turn together. If it  was a standard fixed 55G you could still 
have side-mounted antennas using  swinging gate side-mounts or TIC rotators. 
The additional face width of the  self-supporting tower makes this kind of 
difficult. 
 
    Another difference is the load at height. If you  wanted to go higher 
with the self-supporter, the tower capacity goes down  fairly quickly; not so 
fast with the guyed tower since it uses the guy wires  as part of the supporting 
structure. Guyed towers are typically cheaper  because of that. The cost of a 
tower is the cost of the steel in it.  Self-supporting towers generally have 
much more steel in them for the height  than a guyed tower so they're more 
expensive. 
 
Cheers,
Steve     K7LXC
TOWER TECH and 
_www.championradio.com_ (http://www.championradio.com)  





************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com