Hi Bill
It will be great to have your back on the air, Your AA6TT/0 contest station did
quite well.
FCC part 97 states the following:
(a) Owners of certain antenna structures more than 60.96 meters (200 feet)
above ground level at the site or located near or at a public
use airport must notify the Federal Aviation Administration and register with
the Commission as required by part 17 of this chapter.
This does not address private airstrips. I seem to recall a regulation
allowing a tower height slope of 50:1 when near small airports which in your
case calculates as a 366' tower. Obviously you should research and calculate
this yourself, but it seems to me that you do not need to do anything special.
John KK9A
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] FAA & Private Airstrips
From: William Hein <bill.aa7xt@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:56:36 -0700
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
My family and I recently moved to a wonderful house in beautiful Glade Park CO
(on the other side of Colorado National Monument from Grand Junction. The
house itself is an ultra-energy efficient Earthship (Google "Glade Park
Earthship" for more info). We have 35 rural acres of land around our house in
a low population density rural area. All in all it's going to be a great place
for ham radio.
I've had stations in Malibu CA (as KC6EDP and AA6TT), Tiffany CO (as AA6TT/0)
and Topsham VT (AA6TT/1 and NT1Y) so I have some idea of what works and what
doesn't with regard to terrain, RF and the ionosphere. In this regard my new
location is superb with great 'shots' to EU and JA and elsewhere and is
confirmed by the success the other ham who lives up here - Jerry K0DU - has in
contests and pileups. I'm counting the days until the ground thaws and tower
construction can start in earnest - I've been off the air due to a heavy
workload for several years and I'm dying to be back on the air.
Since moving in I've noticed a small private plane passing overhead fairly low
(I'd say 100 feet or less) on a regular basis and landing nearby. Checking
Google Maps aerial photos I discovered a small grass airstrip with a windsock -
"Pinyon Airport" - on what I believe is private land a little over 5 km SE of
me (5.586 km per Google). The runway is not pointed towards my house
nevertheless seeing the plane flyover directly overhead so low motivate me to
Google FAA, airports and towers. Here is a picture from Google Maps of my
house with a line drawn to the closest point on the airstrip:
http://www.aa7xt.com/
if you want to take a gander at my place on Google Maps yourself:
39.013949 N
-108.744371 W
479 South 16 1/2 Road
Glade Park CO 81523
The FAA Website TOWAIR indicated that "Structure does not require
registration"after I plugged in my coordinates along with elevation (6840-ft
ASL approx.). There are no airports within 8 kilometers (5 miles) of the
coordinates you provided." TOWAIR went on to caution "TOWAIR's findings are
not definitive or binding". Since "Pinyon Airport" (a rather pretentious
designation for a grass airstrip with a windsock) is 5.5 km away I am guess it
is either not registered with the FAA or somehow doesn't count as a real
airport.
I have a 142-foot Big Bertha tower which I previously had installed in Vermont
which I intend to reinstall here along with at least one other 100-ft + tower
and a few smaller structures. For many reasons I'd hate to see a airplane run
into Bertha.
So what should I do now? Contact the FAA for an opinion? Find out who owns
the airstrip and give them a verbal or written heads up on my tower plans and
also request they avoid flying low over my house? Something else?
73
Bill
-----
William Hein, AA7XT
(ex-AA4XT, NT1Y, AA6TT, KC6EDP)
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