[TowerTalk] Guying a tower....Heresy to follow..... True statement!

[Doug Renwick]

Marty, I welcome your true life experience.  So here is one of the many
problems with this reflector ... you get beat up posting your real life
experience which trumps any theory any day.  A lot of these
misinformation specialists believe that you have to over engineer
everything.  If Steve posts this, I expect to get a lot of flak for
speaking frankly.   BTW, flak is eliminated with the delete key.  More
people get killed or injured on the highways every day and we still
continue to drive.  Sheesh, get realistic and put everything in proper
perspective.  This reminds me of the people in the great global warming
swindle.

Doug

I'll run the race and I will never be the same again. 

-----Original Message-----
I must be a heretic on tower building. If I were an engineer, I'd
probably  
still be designing my first tower. I can see stress tensioning the guys
on  
a 600' commercial tower, anyone can, but on 50' or 60' of Rohn 25 I
really 
do  not see the need to get wrapped around an axle over it. In the older

catalogs,  40' was self supporting. It wasn't until the lawyers got
involved 
that it had to  be guyed at 20 through 40 feet. 
 
I have 8 towers up at this time from 20 to 80 feet. I guy my towers when

they are at 50' and above. To be honest, I have lost 2 towers. When
Hurricane 
 Ike went directly over my place a tree snapped and fell across the guy 
wires to  those 2 towers and brought them down.  They might still be
standing 
without  the guys...never know. Also I only put one beam on a tower,
mainly 
to  keep a clean pattern. If one's intent is to stack 4 el 40m beams,
guy 
away by  all means.
 
My thoughts, as wrong as they may be, are that the guys on a 60' tower
only 
 need to be tight enough to keep the tower vertical. I've never pulled a

guy wire  more than hand tight on a turnbuckle. What would be the need
to 
apply  much  more vertical and horizontal stress on a tower? If the
tower flexes 
 one inch in a strong wind the guy wire on the windward side will
tighten 
and  apply the necessary force to stop the tower movement. The middle
guy  
wires only need to be snug enough to keep the center sections of the
tower 
from doing the hula.
 
Just my observations on tower guying after 3 hurricanes.
 
Marty Haley AB5GU

From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of k7lxc at aol.com
Sent: January 16, 2010 11:09 AM
To: towertalk at contesting.com; brahmangou at aol.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Guying a tower....Heresy to follow..... True
statement!

 
In a message dated 1/16/2010 4:23:25 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
towertalk-request at contesting.com writes:

>  I must be a heretic on tower building. If I were an  engineer, I'd 
probably  
still be designing my first tower.  

If you were an engineer, you'd be observing  Laws of science as well as 
engineering and legal codes - not "back  of the envelope" estimates. 
 
>  I can see stress tensioning the guys on  
a 600'  commercial tower, anyone can, but on 50' or 60' of Rohn 25 I
really 
 
do  not see the need to get wrapped around an axle over it. In the
older 
catalogs,  40' was self supporting. 
 
    I think this was an old wive's tale (which I  have in the past
repeated 
myself). I've never seen that statement in any Rohn  literature so I
don't 
know where it came from ("I put it up and it didn't fall  over"?).
 
    OTOH Rohn towers are well known to endure  amateur radio overloading

conditions on a regular basis without failure. 
 
>  It wasn't until the lawyers got involved that it had  to  be guyed at
20 
through 40 feet. 


    While it's true that tower manufacturers are  Insurance-driven 
enterprises, the industry wide adoption of the original  EIA-222 Tower
Standard made 
manufacturers re-calculate their towers in light  of these new standards

and publish new specifications. 

>  My  thoughts, as wrong as they may be, are that the guys on a 60'
tower 
only  
need to be tight enough to keep the tower vertical. 
 
 
So I expect your guys to be way under-guyed which  has the potential to 
introduce wind-induced guy wire slamming as the wind  gusts and the
tower is 
forcibly pushed to the end of the guy travel.  


>  I've never pulled a 
guy wire  more than hand tight on  a turnbuckle. What would be the need
to 
apply  much  more  vertical and horizontal stress on a tower? If the
tower 
flexes 
one inch in  a strong wind the guy wire on the windward side will
tighten 
and   apply the necessary force to stop the tower movement. The middle
guy  
 
wires only need to be snug enough to keep the center sections of the   
tower 
from doing the hula.
 
 
 
Major violations of the LXC Prime Directive  to "DO what the
manufacturer 
says" aside, some of your advice is potentially  dangerous and contrary
to 
industry and manufacturer's specs. I'd say you've  been lucky but then
every 
time you speed you don't get a speeding ticket, do  you? 
 
Cheers,
Steve     K7LXC
TOWER TECH -
Professional tower services for hams
Author of UP THE TOWER - the first tower book ever written
_www.championradio.com_ (http://www.championradio.com)