[TowerTalk] How far away from the shack for that mighty fine tower

[john at kk9a.com]

Once again I agree with K4XS. From a lightning and RFI standpoint it is nice
to have a little distance between your house and the tower. Both of my
towers are 250' from the shack.

John KK9A


To:	TOWERTALK at contesting.com
Subject:	[TowerTalk] How far away from the shack for that mighty fine
tower	:-]
From:	Bill via TowerTalk <towertalk at contesting.com>
Reply-to:	Cqtestk4xs at aol.com
Date:	Sat, 9 Jan 2016 05:53:49 -0500

Having built a few big stations here are my  thoughts.
 
I have always like to have the towers away from the house a bit for  safety 
reasons. Living in the lightning capitol of the northern hemisphere the  
thought of a huge attractive spot for lightning to hit (and it does) I 
preferred  to keep it away from the house as much as practical.  Second,
living 
in 
FL  the there is a real threat of a hurricane.  I would prefer that if the  
tower does come down it will be far enough from my house as to not cause it

damage when it falls.
 
Also, the further the tower is from the house the less chance of RF  
interference to household devices and from them to your antennas.
 
Another factor to take into account is the burying of the  cable.  If you 
don't bury it, no big deal.  However, running 300 feet  of cable under
ground 
can be a little expensive and pretty time consuming since  you have to put 
it in some sort of conduit.
 
That being said it certainly is cheaper to have it close to the  house.  
Depending on what bands you use extra distance can be a  problem.  Once you 
get beyond a 100 feet or so, you'll have to beef up the  rotor cable, which 
can be expensive.  Go beyond 250 or 300 feet and signal  loss can be a
problem 
unless you go to hardline.  Obviously I'm referring  to the higher freqs 
like 10 meters.  Other wiring such as to switch boxes  must also be
increased 
in length and possibly in size.
 
To take care of the increase cost I've always been able to scrounge  up 
cheap 7/8 or larger hardline.  For the extra sized rotor cable I've  always 
used 14/2 house wiring.
 
All things considered, including aesthetics, my choice would be to  keep 
the tower a minimum of the tower's height from the house.
 
Bill K4XS/KH7XS