Ditto, George. I am in rural area of south central Oklahoma and have
built (with contractor help) 2 houses 1800+ and 5000+ sqft and the only
permit or inspection was for the septic systems. I have one
tilt-crankup tower in place and two more towers purchased but not
erected yet, a 49 Ft Rohn to build a knockoff of the Hy-Gain Hy-Tower
and and the bottom 40 ft of a 100 ft tower with its triangular legs 14
ft (not inches) on centers on top of which I will mount a crank-up tower.
Although I have a good friend who has MS in Mech Eng from UCLA and 35
years of hands on experience to sanity check my designs and participate
in my projects I have no restrictions of any kind EXCEPT as relates to
the FAA. My antenna farm has 1/2 mile by 1/2 mile of space so I will
never have towers that can fall on a neighbor's property. I know this is
not the norm and I feel sympathetic toward those who are trying to run
the maze of regulations, restrictions, and prohibitions relating to
antennas and towers in densely populated areas.
I do try to meet or exceed, if not the letter of the various codes, the
intent and not short cut good engineering practice. Although I am
ensconced deep within tornado alley our county design wind speed is
70MPH which I try to always exceed. Being in agricultural production
(Black Angus ranch) we can't get home owner's add-on coverage for towers
and the rates available to us drive us to self insure and take the risk.
As a result of this I tend to be conservative in design and not push the
envelope.
Later this year I hope to be tackling the tower on top of the tower
project. Anyone interested in riding along as a consultant or interested
bystander is most welcome. The biggest unanswered question is what self
standing crank-up tower to put on top of the 40 ft tower. Second most
important unanswered question is whether to mount the top tower on top
of the 40 footer or to have some overlap to make it easier to transfer
the forces involved in holding the upper tower erect. I'm thinking 50 ft
for the upper tower as a minimum and not to exceed 100ft (most likely
around 60 or so for a mounted antenna height above grade of over 100 ft.
I'm good in QRZ to get my email address for PM.
Patrick NJ5G
On 2/21/2014 7:51 AM, Matt wrote:
Or if you lived in South Florida you are height limited, need a building
permit, engineering drawings stamped by a licensed professional engineer
certifying that your tower can withstand 130mph wind speed and various other
hoop jumping.
Matt w1mbb
-----Original Message-----
From: George Dubovsky
Sent: 2/21/2014 8:04 AM
To: towertalk
Subject: [TowerTalk] Fwd: Tower regulations for home brew towers in the US?
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: George Dubovsky <n4ua.va@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 6:43 AM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Tower regulations for home brew towers in the US?
To: Markku Oksanen <markku.a.oksanen@kolumbus.fi>
Hello Markku,
It depends on where you live in the US and who lives near you. If you live
in a housing development, near other people who might be affected by your
construction, then regulations and insurance coverage do come into play.
And some of the States in these United States seem to be more concerned
with regulating every part of you life than other States do.
I live on a farm in semi-rural Virginia, and if I wanted to construct a
tower of just about any height, out of just about any material, there would
be no one telling me I couldn't do it. In fact, I designed and fabricated
all of the bearings and floating guy rings for my 105 foot rotating tower,
although the tower sections themselves are Rohn commercial pieces. I like
tower welding, but not that much... ;-)
73,
geo - n4ua
On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 5:24 AM, Markku Oksanen <
markku.a.oksanen@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
All
Just because I am curious:
Here at OH-land even large towers can be home brew just like my 160 and
145 foot rotating towers.These have been made by a private small company
that made perhaps 200 towers through the years.Building permit and zoning
never questioned the "engineering" of the towers as the responsibility in
the end rests with the owner.In addition, home owner insurance happily
includes towers and covers damage without question.
How is the situation in the US? Looks like most towers are commercial
(Rohn, couple others) and it seems that a "professional engineer"
(correct??) needs to look at the mechanics of the whole thing in order to
get a permit to put up a tower.
So, how, if at all, is it possible to build your own large towers? Does
anybody do this?
The towers I have are 1.5 feet a side with 2 inch tubes, inverted U (0.7
inch) "cross bars". Only guyed at two levels and full of aluminium, 8000
lb steel guy wires and ball bearing guy rings. And they have survived some
crazy storm too in the past 15 years.
MarkkuOH2RA/OG2A/WW1C
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|