At 08:15 AM 6/29/02 -0400, you wrote:
And out here in the cornfields of Iowa, you can't even find anyone to CLIMB
the damned things and give you a hand fixing stuff up top!! When you do,
that'll cost you a month's salary too!! Where is the "helping ham" when
you need him/her now days????
I thought that someone was compiling a list of qualified
tower-climbers/installers for all parts of the country. Steve???
Chuck KØTVD
>YUP, I don't disagree with any of your comments but you have a pretty
>narrow mined view, prolly because you're so into the business of HAM
>RADIO.
>
>Lots of hams these days are retired and on fixed incomes...as you say
>it's easy to find the $150 tower but the $1,000 plus expense for
>installation makes the tower project out of reach for some. If folks
>don't buy towers because of the overall expense i.e. the cost of the
>associated materials, like concrete, then less towers get sold. That's
>a macro view. Something many, if not most, of the folks in the radio
>business fail to develop and is also the reason so many of them
> eventually fail....the examples are numerous.
>
>Believe it or not for some retired ham $75 is a big deal. If you
>weren't an executive at WCOM, XEROX or ENRON and you were considering a
>tower project I'll bet those "BIG DEAL" cost you mention become show
>stoppers!
>
>Ref. you comments on the design engineers. Again, you have to consider
>where they are coming from. The Toe design is the optimal configuration.
> It's not the only one.
>
>The companies that sell and build these towers aren't interested in
>providing a multiple choice selection for their customers when it comes
>to base installations. They want to pay the engineer once and leave it
>to the tower owner to make the choices or look for the options, etc. I
>wouldn't expect anything different. Those engineers charge $$ for those
>designs. Prolly upwards of $1.00 a minute.
>
>THE POINT IS that it's significantly more expensive to install a tower
>today than it was 30 yrs ago when most hams were working and bringing
>home good salaries. My 1st tower cost me $195 new and $30 later it was
>installed. The last tower I bought cost $28,500. I don't think the
>average, retired ham would disagree that a couple hundred bucks for a
>back-hoe is unreasonable for what it can do, that is obvious. The point
>is the stuff adds up and for some, perhaps many those costs make the
>project beyond their reach, DUH!
>
>73s,
>dave
>wa3giin
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