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

[Steve Maki]

cqtestk4xs at aol.com wrote:

>> A lot  has been and is learned from 'trial and error'.

> I've been watching this thread for a while....my two  cents.
>  
> Trial and error is nice if you are putting up a wire antenna and it  falls 
> down....no big deal.  You're out a few bucks and some  time.
>  
> Tiral and error for a tower is a whole different deal...big bucks,  and a 
> possible loss of life...yours or an innocent neighbor's.

Depends on the situation - as has been pointed out, a short tower out on 
the back 40 doesn't cry out for quite the same engineering as one next 
to the house for example.

> I used to hawk tower and stuff back in FL.  I was always  amazed what some 
> guys did in the name of "trial and error".  One so called  experimenter had 
> 60 ft of unguyed Rohn 25 and swore that since it hadn't come  down (yet) it 
> was OK.

My favorite is the guy who insists that he had a great tower, even 
though it is now lying in a twisted heap, and wants to put the same 
thing back up again.

> I wasted my breath for about five minutes saying  that it wasn't a 
> really good thing to do.  Another told me that guying to a  tree was a very 
> acceptable practice.  Another told me it was possible to  tell if a wire 
> wire was tight enough by listening to the "ping" when you hit  it.  Uh, I 
> prefer anchors and my Loos gauge, thank you.  No room for  experimentation here!

IMO guying to a tree is acceptable in certain cases - short tower, big 
tree, done right. I was faced with a situation recently where there 
really wasn't an alternative.

And as far as measuring guy tension, the timed pulse method does work 
well for continuous strands (not broken up with insulators).

-Steve K8LX