[TowerTalk] Roll Your Own Tower

[Wilson Lamb]

It's never good to impugn another culture, but John's message pushes one of 
my very hot buttons.
With people becoming more and more helpless and government taking over more 
and more things we should be doing for ourselves, we are seeing a 
proliferation of regulations and taxes that are well on the way to 
paralyzing us all!  I have been to the UK probably 20 times and I love the 
scenery, the people, and the history.  I observe, however, that their 
planning boards, regulations, customs, and tax structure are even more out 
of hand than hours!  Simple real estate transactions can take months. 
Commercial developments can take years, even decades.  Historically minded 
individuals can blockade most any change in land use, no matter how needed. 
So you have tiny, dangerous roads, on which people speed at amazing velocity 
and have horriffic wrecks, for example.

Why am I sounding off?  Not to pick on John (Just find a used tower from an 
old or moving ham.), but to make the tower-related point that this is well 
on the way to happening to US, right here in the good ole USA!  My helpful 
"planning and Inspections" office will tell me what size wood to use in my 
roof, how many electrical outlets I should have, at what (minimum) spacing, 
and how much of my 15 acres I can use for my driveway.  Would you believe 
the nice lady actually CALCULATED the fraction of my land that would be made 
impermeable by my new 600 square foot garage!  Work it out, if you like, 
700SF/15AC.
It's a small number, not comparable to what one sees on 1/4AC lots.

OK, enough background.  Please think about this at town budget time, 
election time, and when you have to deal with city hall.  When you hire 
planners, they will plan, forever, with no regard for your rights.  And once 
they are in control, there's almost no getting them out!  If someone 
suggests a "Historic" or "Preservation" ordinance or "Updating" the 
neighborhood deed restrictions, watch out!  I managed to kill a proposal 
that would have allowed the "committee" to send a contractor onto private 
property to repaint, at the owners expense, anything on the front of a house 
that did not conform to the approved neighborhood color scheme!  I'm not 
sure if my mention of shotguns had any effect, but the idea failed!

If you want to move into such a place, OK, but in our case, up to 49% of the 
people in the neighborhood would have been bound by the new rule, even 
though they did not want it.

73,
Wilson
W4BOH



----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of John E. Cleeve
Sent: 24 January 2010 02:26
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] "Roll your own" tower/mast.

Gentlemen,

I would be grateful for constructive comment on the following problem. I am
in the market for a couple of 100ft towers or masts, the problem is that in
the UK there are very few manufacturers or suppliers, and those that can
supply new, usually import their wares from abroad. However, one quotation I
received from a UK manufacturer was for approximately 12000 GBP per mast
(guyed), at the factory gate, carriage, guy anchorages and erection of the
masts being in addition.  I look with envy at the availability of towers and
masts in the USA. But importing a tower/mast into the UK would mean
additional value added tax being added to the price, plus the cost of
carriage and insurance imposed at the port of entry. Supplies of ex
commercial or military towers/masts appear to have "dried up" as the scrap
metal men scavenge every kind of metal, so that it can be sent to China!



Looking back through my old copies of the ARRL Handbook, a few suggestions
were offered, such as using redundant Sears windmill towers, or building an
"A" frame support, or even a wooden lattice tower, and so I am thinking of
doing something similar. As many boys did 70 years ago, I grew up playing
with a "Meccano" metal strip construction set, and it occurs to me, that if
one used structural grade aluminium, and high tensile bolts, then it would
not be beyond the realms of possibility to set up an assembly facility in
the back yard, jig drill the bolt holes in the aluminium, for repeatability
and accuracy, and assemble four sided, 25 foot mast sections, as though one
were using a "grown up" Meccano set.



I know that the current metal prices may seem very high, but the price of
buying the metal and assembling ones own tower/mast may be considerably less
than obtaining one from the USA or even Japan. I would be tempted to "copy"
the mechanical design and dimensions of my existing sixty foot lattice
tower, which was made in the UK and I paid around 150 GBP for it back in
1979. Sadly Strumech are no longer manufacturing for the amateur radio
market, but the last of their production of the sixty foot tower, was priced
at around 5000 GBP. My Strumech P60 is of triangular section, with tubular
steel vertical sections and solid steel rods forming the lattice, the
junctions with the vertical members being welded, the entire assembly then
being hot galvanised.



Possible sources of tower/mast designs or design information would be very
useful, and I look forward to the groups response in due course, sincerely,
John G3JVC.