Wes,
What a great effort and result!
I live in unincorporated San Mateo County between San Francisco and San Jose.
We are in a Timber Preserve Zone, where routine timber harvesting is the
"highest use of the land". To put up my crank-up tower, I first had to
convince the Planner this was not a cell tower. Then verify there were no
Marbled Murletts or Red-Legged frogs that might be displaced. (I like to joke
that Marbled Murletts go great with Hollandaise Sauce!) The local gopher
snakes take care of the frogs. Then had to come up with a mitigation plan for
the new water runoff that would be created by my tower's concrete foundation's
roughly 100 square feet of impermeable surface. I convinced them the pile of
branches from the Doug fir tree I removed (per our Timber Harvesting Plan)
would break up the erosive water flow from the foundation runoff. And finally
I had to promise the crank-up would be nested whenever I wasn't actually
transmitting. Besides dealing with Mother Nature, we also have to deal with
the Bu
reaucracy!
73,
Steve
N6SJ
ps. Really sorry you're in a BOZO Zone!
-----Original Message-----
From: TowerTalk <towertalk-bounces@contesting.com> On Behalf Of Wes
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2026 4:15 PM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Terrain Modeling (was choke on vertical dipole)
Note where I say "constrained by county zoning limits"
I live within 1,000 feet of Saguaro National Park and fall within a Pima County
BOZO (Buffer Overlay Zone) that restricts structure height, building color and
reflectance, including roofs if not shielded by parapet walls, and non-native
plant species. I got the zoning people to go along with a 50 foot tower
height. So that is what I live with. A small Optibeam (OB7-3) triband Yagi,
an inverted V. apex at 45' and a 50' vertical for the lower bands. (Before the
vertical, I did work my first 80 countries on 160 with the inverted V with the
ends 6' above ground) My shack is in a 6 ft x 7 ft closet with a single 120VAC
20A service.
Despite not having mapped my terrain or having used propagation forecasts, I
have earned No 1 HR (Mixed), HR (Phone), CW DXCC (320), DXCC on traditional
RTTY (274), 9-band DXCC plus 144 countries worked on 60-meters. Do I recommend
these limitations, of course not, if you have the means. But if you don't, do
not despair.
Wes N7WS
On 1/15/2026 2:57 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
> If used extensively with good data, will tell us the relative
> effectiveness of mounting heights. With that information, we can make
> more intelligent decisions about what to do with what our real estate,
> budget, and other capabilities allow.
>
> In my case, I learned that 120 ft was near optimum for EU, my most
> difficult direction, that a few more tower sections were not better,
> and that to get better, I'd need to go to at least 300 ft! :)
>
> I also learned that 20 ft at different location on my property was a
> minor sweet spot for a small 10M yagi.
>
> I spent close to a month on it. Neighbor K6XX, 4 miles up the ridge
> from me, used it extensively in planning his antenna farm.
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
>
> On 1/15/2026 11:21 AM, Wes Stewart via TowerTalk wrote:
>> Speaking primarily as a ham radio DXer, constrained by county
>> zoning limits, my take on terrain modeling is, "What am I going to do about
>> it?"
>> Propagation prediction is pretty much the same question.
>
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