[TowerTalk] Alternative Method of Tower Guying(Correction)

[W2RU - Bud Hippisley]

You didn’t specify the wind loading of the DSTAR repeater antenna you intend to put atop this tower, but I have three comments:

1.  Depending on the antenna wind load in combination with the zoning requirements and wind speed category of your county, three sections of Rohn 45 _might_ be self-supporting in this application — with no guy wires required.

2.  Instead of your system of a secondary “guy wire” to pull the “real” guy wire around the offending obstruction, why not just move the guy anchor point inboard enough to clear the obstruction?  (The only reason I can think of is that it’s a flat roof with no obvious or easy way of creating guy anchors except at the exterior walls.  But then I will ask how you intend to create a suitably strong guy anchor out there at the edges.)  The problem with the system in your drawing is that it causes the upper part of the “difficult" guy wires to come off the top of the tower at the same steep angle as they would if you simply located the guy anchors inboard. 

3.  If your only source of guy anchor points is on the perimeter of the roof, and you (or your PE) insist on guying the tower, consider attaching the guy wires lower on the tower.  I’d be surprised if any available repeater antenna mounted 10 or 15 feet above the guy wire attachment point would stress Rohn 45.  

Bottom line:  If it were my problem, I’d hire a professional engineer to determine whether I needed any guy wires at all.  Assuming your DSTAR repeater antenna has a substantially smaller wind load than, say, a 4-element 15-meter monobander, I’d put all my effort into a secure, strong roof mount for the Rohn 45 sections, and make the whole thing free-standing.  But to repeat, I have no idea how much wind loading your antenna represents.

Bud, W2RU

On Sep 24, 2014, at 8:26 19PM, tsharar at comcast.net wrote:

> Many thanks to VE4XT. 
> 
> The Dropbox link to the diagram I mentioned in my message below is: https://www.dropbox.com/s/045eg6clpclbk3k/Tower%20Guying.png?dl=0 
> 
> 73 de Terry Sharar W3EDS 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> 
> From: tsharar at comcast.net 
> To: towertalk at contesting.com 
> Sent: Monday, September 22, 2014 9:58:48 PM 
> Subject: [TowerTalk] Alternative Method of Tower Guying 
> 
> Towertalkians, 
> 
> We are planning to erect a tower for our club's DSTAR repeater antenna. This tower will consist [of] three ten foot Rohn 45G tower sections on the flat roof of a multistory building. The problem we have is that two of the three guy anchor points are under an adjacent structure roof overhang and will not allow us to guy the tower at or near the top. One of our club members has proposed a novel idea for deviating the guys around the roof overhang - please see the diagram below. Has anyone ever tried something like this before? Does this look like a good idea or not? 
> 
> Please note that this diagram is not to scale. 
> 
> 73 de Terry Sharar W3EDS 
> Chair, Repeater Committee 
> Montgomery Amateur Radio Club 
> Rockville, MD 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> 
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