[TowerTalk] Guying Alum Tower

[K7LXC at aol.com]

>  I have a 50 foot Universal Aluminum tower which I would  like to extend 
to 80-100 feet and guy it to offset the fact the base  sections would not 
be large enough for Universal's design drawings at that  height.   Anyone 
have any experience good or bad in trying to do  something like this?
 
    As others have commented, a self-supporting tower  isn't designed to be 
guyed. That being said, I'm not crazy about extending the  height of the 
tower. The capacity will shrink significantly if you do  that and you didn't 
mention what you're going to put on it or what your  windspeed conditions 
are. 
 
    As far as guying it, any additional weight on the  tower (e.g. weight 
of the guys, tension) will also reduce the tower capacity as  the limiting 
factor is the leg strength so by the time you put the guys on, you  might run 
out of capacity. 
 
    I don't recommend doing this. 
 
Cheers,
Steve      K7LXC
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