Time for a Tower! Thoughts and Ideas?

[K1JJ]

 If you can afford a tower, you need to put in a good ground system.  At the very least, run additional grounds out to your guy anchors and tie the guy wires (assuming you don't use Phillystran) to a rod at each anchor.  

Excellent post and great suggestions.

I've done a similar thing here using 0000 copper cable for the self supporters. All cad welded.  In addition, all the towers are tied together using an underground cable in a trench.  Over 25 years I've rarely had a lightning hit and assume the towers are bleeding off the charge for the immediate area.

I've often wondered about my guyed towers.... I use insulators to break up the guy wires. When a strike occurs nearby, I hear the snap as the charge arcs across the insulators to ground.  I understand that during a direct hit, insulators can disintegrate. Any suggestions for grounding insulator-broken-up guys?


T

Pictured: JJ 190' self-supporter with sixteen stacked 6M homebrew Yagis.

[flintstone mop]

F,

" NO grounding system will be able to dissipate all of that juice from the sky. "

klc

ahhhem shudda said No Hammy Hambone grounding system will dissipate all of that juice from the sky.

"F"

[W1ITT]

Tom..
Over in Europe, I saw some large johnny-ball guy insulators that had spark gaps across them, similar to the gaps one sees across the base insulator on series-fed AM towers.  As I recall, some of them looked good, and others had gotten cocked off over the years.  Unless they were built very stout, maintenance could be a problem.  They looked like more trouble than they were worth.
Norm W1ITT

[KL7OF]

This is how my 60 ft crankup is grounded........I put this iron framework in the ground and mounted the tower on top of it...No additional grounding needed.

[KL7OF]

more

[KD6VXI]

In California we are required to bond the panel to the rebar of the foundation of the building of the service entrance on new construction.

Ie,  your power enters the house,  your concrete guys would stick a piece of rebar up the wall.   There also has to be an inspection cover that can be removed.

We also put in ground rods here.   2 minimum.

--Shane
KD6VXI

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Steve -

Unless you are planning to climb or hire someone you can rely on to climb for you, I'd strongly suggest going with a crank up/tilt over arrangement if your load requirements aren't massive. I've got a small (45' or so) EZ-Way tower with the WonderPost base which doesn't require concrete and is surprisingly stout. It's also self-grounding, of course. Would handle small 2, 6, and tri-band yagis without issue. Or you could go with one of the larger Telrex towers, get a motor winch system, limit switches, etc.

As someone said, check Craigslist and other classifieds. There are a *lot* of towers out there now looking for homes. Quite often you can have them free for removing them. Just check them over well first for rust and other damage.

[KL7OF]

Steve -

Unless you are planning to climb or hire someone you can rely on to climb for you, I'd strongly suggest going with a crank up/tilt over arrangement if your load requirements aren't massive. I've got a small (45' or so) EZ-Way tower with the WonderPost base which doesn't require concrete and is surprisingly stout. It's also self-grounding, of course. Would handle small 2, 6, and tri-band yagis without issue. Or you could go with one of the larger Telrex towers, get a motor winch system, limit switches, etc.

As someone said, check Craigslist and other classifieds. There are a *lot* of towers out there now looking for homes. Quite often you can have them free for removing them. Just check them over well first for rust and other damage.

Todd...the someone that said "check craigslist"   was me....Lots of tower available....Now of course you should inspect very closely any used tower sections that you might buy....There was some concern expressed about "used" tower....
  The tower I put up, (The one in the pictures I posted)  is a freestanding 60 ft crank up with tilt over feature....In the last picture you can see the tilt over fixture with hand winch that I welded up ...I just copied the one made by US Towers...I put an electric hoist on the crank up/ down so it is almost effortless to go up/down and not hard at all to tilt over....I'm very happy with my installation....I have a 2 element 20 meter monobander with a 3 element 15 meter mono bander above that and a 4 element 10 meter monobander above that...  No climbing....