tower and dipole project finally moving along

[Opcom]

drawings

[Opcom]

drawings..

the city is forcing me to do all this drawing. It is a pain. taking forever, then they don't like this or that. finally though I think they will accept these.

I have most of the hard materials stacked up. My comment at this time is that a 15FT piece of 1/4" wall 5" ID steel pipe is very heavy.

[k4kyv]

Since you are already using the hollow pipe, why not go one step further and fill the pipe with concrete with a piece of 1" re-bar down through the entire length of the pipe?  It would add only a few dollars to the cost and wouldn't require all that much extra work.  That will keep water out.  With 5" i.d. it may take a while after an extended rainy period for all the water to soak through the pea  gravel.  Here, that would never work.  The soil doesn't "perk" very well, so the pipe might stay filled for a week or more before it all drained.  Does it freeze in winter where you live? 

Also, the extra concrete and re-bar would make the pipe a lot stiffer and unlikely ever to bend or break during a storm.

[WA1GFZ]

Get yourself a copy of a tower book. I think Keith posted them on his site. Just give the town a copy.

[Mike/W8BAC]

I might be missing something here. I'm confused as to why you have four guy wire sets when most towers have three sides.

I did a similar design with my tower guys 15 years ago or so but I used a cheap section of tower 10 feet long. I didn't want to cut off my driveway with guy's and the tower section did a great job. Good Luck!

Mike

[K1JJ]

Don't feel bad...

Back in '98, the state of CT was still shell shocked cuz a plaza balcony collapsed and killed some construction workers. They decided the engineering design was skimpy. They made a law that required TWO separate engineering firms to analyze and put their stamps on any structure higher than 60'. This was in addition to the town permit requirements.  For my towers, I had to have extreme detailed blueprints of everything including where every piece of rebar was located in the tower base. It took about 44 cubic yards of concrete and hundreds of feet of a 3/4" rebar matix to satisfy them for each self supporter.  I needed to do this for both 190' self supporters and for the guyed Rohn 45's.  I have two cardboard boxes filled with hundreds of pages of paperwork - unbelieveable.

The second engr inspector actually came to the QTH with a tape measure and calipers checking the hole size, rebar placement and base bolts, etc.  I learned a lot, that's for sure.  I did the whole job myself, under the watchful guidance of tower pro, Big Al.


As an epitah, the fully loaded towers handled the recent 100 mph winds with no problems.  They tell me it would take a 170,000 pull at the top of the tower (190' self supporters) for the base to flip over. Of course the tower wud fail long before that.

T

[Opcom]

It does not freeze below ground where I am in TX. Sometimes the grass freezes, on very rare occasion someone's outdoor water spigot, if on a 10-12" exposed pipe, will pop. If we get snow or ice it's gone or turned to mush the next 2 days. When it ices the roads, we just take a couple days off.

I could also cap the pipes. But I will talk to the tower guys about concreting them. The can't be concreted all the way up, as a bolt has to be passed through and if it ever needs replaced, I don't want it embedded in concrete. I was shown a bent deadman on a 100T tower. It was wimpy compared to these.

I have 4 guys, if you notice, the deadmen are very close to the tower, in that 40x40 yard. If I used 3, one would be 20FT from the tower. This way they are about 28FT. Since the concrete base makes the tower self supporting, (accdg to Rohn) the guys are for extra safety. The tower should survive very high winds that way. We get 60-90 MPH winds during severe storms.

One of the tower guys is a registered engineer. They came up with this arrangement, I just had to do the drawings. If the permit vendors at the marsupial office squawk about engineering stamps, he'll do it.

I got my plans printed out by using the plotter in the computer room. I have permission from the telecom dept to occasionally use it, and they authorized my badge. I also found out other people have worse jobs than me.

The computer room is a holey place where most people are forbidden to tread. I was using the 24" plot printer to do my drawings for the city. So, I am in there with a cup of coffee, which I am now sure is a violation of some rule I have not been informed of. I get tired of waiting, and start looking at the computers. They have alot of flashing lights on them, but the lights are all for disk drives, not for the computers' inscrutable thoughts. So that's kind of PW. Anyway, I am walking up and down the aisles of computers and storage arrays and whatever they all are, just admiring each one.. Some are really old. In walks one of the IT guys and he heads down the aisle I am in.  What are you doing in here? he asks. "I'm trying to figure out which ones hate me", I said. So he says, "Only the ones you access." and says something about not spilling the coffee on the (raised) floor. So I told him I'm just waiting on my plotter job and departed the inter-computular spaces to go stand by the plotter so I won't spill my coffee all over the place or something. He has this clipboard.. On it is 1/4" of fine print lists. Pretty much they are planning to move all those computers to the other building. These are big computers, each one is rack size and i didn't count them but there must be 40-50 of those things. I don't envy that job, because it has to be done in one weekend, like from 6PM friday to 7AM Monday and all has to be up and running.

[flintstone mop]

Sorry to hear about the engineering woes.

Get a wood utility pole and be done with it.

Have a system in place to take care of maintenance of your antenna systems.

Usually no permit needed.

70 foot pole installed was $6500.

Fred

[KB5MD]

Glad I don't live inside some freaking city.  I can still build things without asking someone else to put his nose in my business!

[Opcom]

This is alot cheaper than a $6500 utility pole! also, there is a tax on antennas over 60FT. You have to pay this nonrefundable tax to some marsupial board to give you permission. But before they give you permission, they stick their noses in all directions, especially into the business of any neighbors that might hate you, publishing a notice in the newspaper, checking if you have paid all your taxes, checking behind your ears for dirt, etc.  yet the guy downtown said they all get approved after 30-60 days.. what rubbish. They clearly skirt the federal law in extracting these illegal taxes.

[flintstone mop]

Have you investigated the possibility using a wooden pole? Would there be the same taxes and fees and engineering involved?

That was my fix for Ham radio. You are correct...expensive.....but should out-live me by many years.
We used the wooden pole approach at many locations for a remote meter reading/SCADA system at my former work place. No permits, no engineering, no taxes.


Fred

[Opcom]

For the telephone pole there would be the same need for drawings and engineering and permits. Anything over 30FT tall requires a permit. They want to know how deep the hole is, what diameter, what it will be filled with, what's in the bottom of it, and where the engineering came from. Even making your house >30Ft tall requires permits. I'm under 60FT so the additional $600 tax won't have to be paid. I am waiting for them to review the plans and get back to me. There is nothing to do but follow the rules and get it done. I am at least satisfied that I can put up 30FT  items. Perhaps as many as I like. But I need the 50FT to get to the horizon.

[flintstone mop]

OK You live in a high class neighborhood that's anti-tower. They put up as many roadblocks as they can to discourage towers.
Definitely go for all the vertical footage you can

Fred

[Opcom]

It's for everyone's own good. I'm sure the city does not want me to offend the sensibilities of the welfare leaches, crackheads, and prostitutes with an unsightly ham radio antenna.

[Jim, W5JO]

What city do you live in Pat?  I didn't know Dallas or any of it surburbs were that restrictive.  Now I know why the Gulf Region is busy trying to overturn the HOA thing. 

[flintstone mop]

Those taxes you pay for the losers, keeps them supplied with their special needs like air conditioning and cell phones so they can make contact with their suppliers.

Fred

[Opcom]

I live in Dallas. The application-accepter guy called and told me I need an SUP supplimental use tax, er. permit. $600-$2000.

I do not need this tax unless my plans are wrong, but he said nothing about them. If the plans are wrong I will change them slightly.

I believe I have interpreted the city code properly and drawn ther plans to comply. I have created this excerpt of the relevant codes to show in several places where the antenna as applied for is permitted without the SUP.

Anyone care to look at this mess and comment? I have to go downtown and talk to this fellow, and hopefully find the politest way to get to the bottom of this. I hate this money-grabbing bureaucracy, but I don't want to tick them off, just get my permit.

[Opcom]

It turns out he tried to apply the wrong section of the code. He thought it was a utility antenna (cell, TV, BC radio) tower.
He did not know that an Amateur radio tower is permitted, because it was not listed under things that are prohibited. He did not know that it is a diferent "accessory use". Once I asked him to look (as an example) at a section of code where it -is- forbidden, then he understood, and was actually very pleased that I was so well informed.

E for effort. So, now the permit application is moving again.

[K1DEU]

The Abyssinian Feline studies greatly and moves with much patience. 73  john

[Opcom]

Her patience and attendance to the scrolls of justice has served my house well.
Or maybe it was the way she read the incantations to the permit-stopping-guy over the phone..
He does not speak Kzinti, maybe he didn't like the implications.

 ! permit is in hand ! - along with my 2nd copy of the plans returned to me with no red ink or "fix this" notes.

The Irving Amateur Radio Club is going to help me do it. Among them is at least one mechanical engineer. A team of these guys loosely forms a contracting company that puts up antennas nd does system level installatiuon and refurbishment for military and government installations worldwide. I'm in good hands and they won't rake me over the coals.

Some might ask why I live in Dallas but belong to the Irving club. It's because several long time friends are in that club, and their events are very interesting and we do hands-on. They also treat me like family or at least like a cousin, which the Dallas club did not seem to.
I have nothing against the Dallas club, but it is larger and can be more political (which I do not care much for). It does offer many opportunities to serve such as working as a storm spotter. I suppose I could be a member of both.

I will be sure to post pictures of the work as it progresses.

[Opcom]

Progress.. how long has it been.

The 15FT deadmen are here, have been for months. The holes are bored and dug, and the base section is in concrete which is starting to set up. The work has taken my mind off unpleasant things for now.

[Opcom]

and.. notice how clean the 5 ft deep deadman hole is. not a speck of stray dirt. It was easy. Emptied the shop-vac many times doing that. The last picture shows the 15 ft long, 5" OD  thickwall pipe for deadmen. This seamless process pipe was originally for chemical plants. it is super strong. These are tailings, the ends of the pipe after manufacture, and the walls are over-thick, so that it cannot be used in plant construction.