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Idea to reduce tower guy wire footprint | 9 comments (9 topical, editorial)
Re: Idea to reduce tower guy wire footprint (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by SparWeb (sparweb at ANTISPAM_hotmail_com) on Mon May 12th, 2008 at 09:42:24 PM MST
(User Info)

In one plane, it is rigid, but in the other plane, it rotates and must be supported with guy wires.  I think you're asking for "the best of both worlds", when you can only get one (easily).  There's nothing technically wrong with your idea, but don't you want to be the guy who can prove it will work, if you're the one to do it?

I work for a company that has designed and built a couple of unique towers for a customer with very specific needs.  The towers, once raised, worked very well and they were very pleased.  Once the towers got into the field, the process of lowering and raising them overwhelmed the abilities of the people using them.  People with university degrees.  Both were dropped at least once (fortunately without any injuries).  The customer has abandoned the project.  (Sort of an oversimplification - they didn't drop the project because of the towers, their other equipment was self-destructing with no human intervention at all!  But the towers didn't help, either).  The lesson is that, while your solution may be a good one, the more skill required to do it right, the greater the risk.

When designing one for my own back yard, I set out to make my tower as simple and quick to lower and raise as possible.  I succeeded: it can go down and back up again in one half hour.  I do it alone, and I need only one wrench.  I pull with the tractor.  It has been raised and lowered over 2 dozen times since finished last July.  If I decide to install a winch, I can eliminate the tractor part, too.

I mean to warn, not to discourage you.  The base of my 45-foot tower is a 40x40 diamond, so it takes up a lot of space.  What you propose is a tower twice as high, with only 150% the footprint.  If you don't have the skill to design it yourself, then you need to buy that skill.

Advice on a web forum is worth what you pay for it :^)

Steven Fahey



Idea to reduce tower guy wire footprint | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 editorial)

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