[TowerTalk] Question on R-TA-45 Torque Bracket

[Steve Bookout]

Hello all,

Couple of comments on K4JA's tower failure.

The lower half of the tower was shielded from some of the wind by way of 
tall trees at the edge of the field, where the woods started.  The upper 
half went way above the trees and took the full force of the wind.

Also, his stuff was fully rotating from the base up to the top, with 
slip rings at the guy points.  Because of this, the guys really had 
nothing to do with limiting the twisting of the tower. It just twisted 
as it wanted all the way from the ground to the top.

73 de Steve, NR4M

On 6/15/2019 7:56 PM, john at kk9a.com wrote:
> I would not put more on a tower than Rohn's wind load ratings allow 
> just because a torque guy is used. A 6 way star guy does a great job 
> of minimizing twisting.  There is more leg compression since there are 
> more guys wires however a Rohn 45 is designed to go 300' high and the 
> tower in the post is only 110'. I believe that twisting can cause 
> tower failure, K4JA's tower twisted back and forth in hurricane winds 
> until it failed. Adding a star guy is probably a good thing if the 
> antenna has a long boom. I use star guys and a taper pier pin base on 
> all of my towers.
>
> John KK9A
>
>
>
> k7lxc wrote:
>
>
>>    I had one of these on the top guy set of my 110' R45 tower.   And 
>> I had torque arms on the lower two guy sets.
>>    My question is aside from twisting, does this change any of the 
>> wind loading numbers?
>>    My suspicion is the double guy sets per face can only help but I 
>> have never seen it quantified.
>
>   Since the capacity of a tower is determined by the leg strength, I'd 
> say that the use of a star guy bracket doesn't really do anything to 
> change it. I'm not an engineer so I don't have any calcs to provide.
> Cheers,Steve     K7LXCTOWER TECH
>
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