>
> This thread has been interesting and healthy because it illustrates that
> technical issues can easily become philosophical ones, subject to
> judgement
> calls; and that "Hard Science" is an oxymoron!
Building a tower is not philosophy, nor is it science experiment. It is an
engineering job. The mechanics and materials are well understood. the
tools are readily available to engineers to do very specific calculations of
forces and compare them with the design and known environment extremes.
The manufacturers design their towers for specific configurations that they
have paid engineers to analyze and stand behind. They can not obviously
analyze an unlimited number of possible configurations that anyone may want
to try so they provide a set of known good designs and their limitations.
This is not to say that doing anything other than what they publish will
definitely fail, it just says that it is safe to use those designs.
It should never be necessary to 'guess' or rely on anyone else's single
experiment that happened to work, no matter how many years it may have
survived. So if you don't have the knowledge to do the proper calculations
either do what the manufacturer says or get someone who can do the
calculations for your planned design... believe me, you will sleep much
easier at night when the wind is howling knowing that you can sue the
engineer if it breaks rather than trying to fight with the insurance company
and explain why your guess wasn't strong enough.
David Robbins K1TTT
e-mail: mailto:k1ttt@arrl.net
web: http://www.k1ttt.net
AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
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