[TowerTalk] Aluminum tower welds...Old Data circa mid 1970's ..........

[res1q6fs]

I have been reading the aluminum tower threads recently and thought I would add some data on the aluminum tower I had a number of years ago, maybe before some of you were born!. Anyway, in the early 70's, I wanted an inexpensive, self supporting tower as I did not want guy wires. I settled on the Universal 50 ft. model whose size was rated well above my TH3 wind load was going to provide. I had the tower for 5 to 6 years and was climbing it one day to service the rotator. Well, as I was readjusting my climbing belt, I looked down at my feet and saw something that was incredible. The weld joints of almost all the welds above 30 feet were starting to crack, some were sizeable (a few that I saw had at least a 0.1 inch gap)  and some were hairline, just starting. Needless to say, I set a worlds record for coming down off the tower. I decided to take the tower down and replace it. I sold it to a ham that had experience in welding aluminum and he was happy to get a cheap tower! I eventually upgraded to a Rohn 25 48 ft. fold over and now 30 years later have the UST HDX555, a fine, well built tower, my first crank up. Hopefully, they are making the aluminum towers better and I had a fluke, but I personally would think twice now before I would use one of these for any length of time. Maybe I had a lemon, who knows. The tower had plenty of margin for a TH3 and that was all I ever had on top of it and it saw no ultra high winds.

 

W5RD

Murphy, Texas