Tower question........

[RolandSWL]

The wife and I are planning our escape from Long island, N.Y. to the greener pastures of Maine.
She wants a move in ready house and I want land to engage in nefarious radio activities.
I have a fantasy to erect one or two self supporting towers of at least 100 feet in height.
My question is, aluminum or steel? Is one better than the other considering that the climate in Maine
can be icy and windy in winter? The tower(s) will be used to support a beam and the associated
effluvia and also wire antennas. Perhaps I'll shunt feed the tower itself.
What say you?

[KA3EKH]

Better be prepared to drag out the check book, a Rohn SSV 100 foot self-supporting is going to be pricey, just a regular Rohn 65G 100ft guyed tower will set you back around 17 to 18K not including installation. Most Hams just do a 25G or 45G sections and beyond forty or fifty feet guy them. I have a forty-foot 45G non guyed and that works for me.
Don’t think any serious towers are built of aluminum, that’s just for lighting trusses and things like that.
Certain others know more and are more experienced on the subject.
 

[W3SLK]

RolandSWL said:

The wife and I are planning our escape from Long island, N.Y. to the greener pastures of Maine.
She wants a move in ready house and I want land to engage in nefarious radio activities.
I have a fantasy to erect one or two self supporting towers of at least 100 feet in height.
My question is, aluminum or steel? Is one better than the other considering that the climate in Maine
can be icy and windy in winter? The tower(s) will be used to support a beam and the associated
effluvia and also wire antennas. Perhaps I'll shunt feed the tower itself.
What say you?

I think if there was any one person on this board who could answer your question it would be Tom, K1JJ. He lives up in CT and has quite the antenna farm!

[KD1SH]

 Actually, there are some serious aluminum towers available:
https://www.alumatower.com/products/towers/amateur-radio-operators/
  I can't personally vouch for them, since I haven't used one, but I've communicated with the company, gotten a quote, and been quite impressed.
  Not only have towers gotten obscenely expensive in the last twenty years or so—check out the U.S Towers prices—but where you'll really pay through the nose is in shipping costs, depending on where you live. My shipping quote from Alumatower was roughly $1000, which included $450 for the wooden shipping crate—a lot of money for something that will probably become firewood once its job is done. Considering that a steel tower would be vastly heavier, the shipping costs would necessarily be higher still.
 

Better be prepared to drag out the check book, a Rohn SSV 100 foot self-supporting is going to be pricey, just a regular Rohn 65G 100ft guyed tower will set you back around 17 to 18K not including installation. Most Hams just do a 25G or 45G sections and beyond forty or fifty feet guy them. I have a forty-foot 45G non guyed and that works for me.
Don’t think any serious towers are built of aluminum, that’s just for lighting trusses and things like that.
Certain others know more and are more experienced on the subject.
 

[W1ITT]

I live in Maine.  I'm inland about 40 miles from the coast and we get ice, snow and wind.  I've had a Universal Aluminum 70 footer, 18 inch face, up for over 40 years.  Being a belt and suspenders sort of fellow, even though it's listed as self supporting, I bracket it at 20 and guy with Phillystran at 50 feet. The top 20 feet is self supported and I've had various yagis and various other things up there without incident.
I spent a lot of time as a field service engineer for TCI, all over the world.  We supplied, among other things, a 4 to 30 mhz rotary log periodic antenna, all aluminum on an aluminum tower. 100 foot boom and it was nearly 100 feet up, with a big hydraulic rotor in the head.  I once put one on 75M from Puerto Rico at 50 watts.  SWR was still OK and it was a real boomer.  These were in all environments, Puerto Rico, Azores, Japan, Romania and a bunch of other nifty spots .  Aluminum is fine for towers.
Check your local zoning office...generally the "code enforcement guy" in most Maine towns and ask to see any tower ordinances.  Aside from some subdivisions in suburbia, things are pretty reasonable up here.  Frost can go down as far as 5 feet when we have a real winter so don't scrimp on foundations and guy anchors..  And don't be too proud about being from New York.  We don;t have many prejudices in Maine, but that can be one of them.
73 de Norm W1ITT

[RolandSWL]

Thanks for the information. I have seen used Rohn towers go for stupid money down here. Norm, Maine has been our happy vacation place for years. The first thing we'll do is stop at the D.M.V. to get rid of our N.Y. license plates. We are casting a wide net as to where we'll ultimately live. The wife was quite taken by Skowhegan.
Roland....

[Jim, W5JO]

Here is a company in Canada that makes self supporting towers.  I believe the tallest is 68 ft. but you can look if you please.  They are made like the Rohn DBX series and is very sturdy.  The last time I looked the prices weren't as bad as Rohn.


https://wadeantenna.com/product-category/towers/

[w9jsw]

Thanks for the information. I have seen used Rohn towers go for stupid money down here. Norm, Maine has been our happy vacation place for years. The first thing we'll do is stop at the D.M.V. to get rid of our N.Y. license plates. We are casting a wide net as to where we'll ultimately live. The wife was quite taken by Skowhegan.
Roland....

Timmy land...WA1HLR

[RolandSWL]

Funny story. While in Skowvegas I asked several random people if they knew a Tim Smith. Cue the crickets. To a person they said 'you mean TIMTRON' !

[WB6NVH]

In the early 80's I was manager of the ham department in a large electronics store in San Jose, CA. Long gone now. We were a Rohn dealer and carried 25 and 45 series sections.  At that time a 10 foot section of 25G was $ 65 and we would loan you the gin pole.  I had any number of customers who would come in and complain that Texas Towers sold 25G sections for some $ 20 cheaper and there was no sales tax. I would try to explain that the shipping would kill all of that, but they would have none of it.  They were sure there was free shipping and would not be talked out of the idea.

California has pretty mild weather other than right on the ocean so towers last a long time.  You can usually get a free 50-75 foot one out here but the devil is in the details.  I have a friend in Long Beach who just had his 65 foot Rohn 45G taken down two days ago as he is moving out of state, and it is headed to the scrap yard.  He just doesn't want to deal with it.  The crazy situations are where there will be an ad on Craigslist where it says "Free tower, grandpa died and his house is sold and we need it out of here. You take down and haul away."  I cringe when I see this. The liability issues are massive.

The age of nice towers in residential areas is coming to an end in most of the country.  Neighbors, HOA's and city codes are all against it.  Not that it would affect you in the country, but the law of supply and demand means towers will get more expensive and harder to source.

Smart dealers won't sell caged crank-up towers. Too risky, some fool will try to climb one.  But those usually are 50 feet or less and don't fit your plans anyway. 

None of this really answers your questions but the topic jogged my memory.

[RolandSWL]

Not at all Geoff. It is food for thought. Free usually means the lower lumbar pays the check.

[KD6VXI]

In the early 80's I was manager of the ham department in a large electronics store in San Jose, CA. Long gone now. We were a Rohn dealer and carried 25 and 45 series sections.  At that time a 10 foot section of 25G was $ 65 and we would loan you the gin pole.  I had any number of customers who would come in and complain that Texas Towers sold 25G sections for some $ 20 cheaper and there was no sales tax. I would try to explain that the shipping would kill all of that, but they would have none of it.  They were sure there was free shipping and would not be talked out of the idea.

California has pretty mild weather other than right on the ocean so towers last a long time.  You can usually get a free 50-75 foot one out here but the devil is in the details.  I have a friend in Long Beach who just had his 65 foot Rohn 45G taken down two days ago as he is moving out of state, and it is headed to the scrap yard.  He just doesn't want to deal with it.  The crazy situations are where there will be an ad on Craigslist where it says "Free tower, grandpa died and his house is sold and we need it out of here. You take down and haul away."  I cringe when I see this. The liability issues are massive.

The age of nice towers in residential areas is coming to an end in most of the country.  Neighbors, HOA's and city codes are all against it.  Not that it would affect you in the country, but the law of supply and demand means towers will get more expensive and harder to source.

Smart dealers won't sell caged crank-up towers. Too risky, some fool will try to climb one.  But those usually are 50 feet or less and don't fit your plans anyway. 

None of this really answers your questions but the topic jogged my memory.

Quement?

--Shane
WP2ASS / ex KD6VXI

[WB6NVH]

Yes indeed

[w8khk]

Quement?

--Shane
WP2ASS / ex KD6VXI

South Bascom Avenue, San Jose
Been there in 1984, even got the T-shirt

Good, knowledgeable people, fair prices, unadvertised bargains.  The internet vendors can't compare with old-school brick and mortar suppliers like this, and many others of the day.

[N1BCG]

What bands are you mostly active on?  What is the surrounding terrain elevation like?

I ask because tower height is most important for line-of-sight frequencies and for low-frequency verticals.

You don't need much height to support an HF beam as it's not hard to "see" the ionosphere even from a 50' tower in a valley. Being 100' closer to the sky isn't going to do much for signals travelling hundreds or thousands of miles.

Alternatively, if you're into VHF and UHF and located in a valley, all the tower you can afford will be worth it.