On Sun, 28 May 2006 22:31:59 -0500, lorentsonci
wrote:

I think somone , smarter than me , will have a answer,,,, "you are
driving down the hiway and see a cell/antenna tower, it is off the
hiway but you don't know how far,,,, and you would like to know how
tall the tower is,,,????? Is there a simple (kiss) way to find out?
thanks in advance. cl.

Although you are going to get a lot of answers the killer is that KISS
which leaves an answer of, no...no really, BUT depending on your math
skills you can come up with a rough approximation.

The accuracy depends on being close enough to get a reasonable angle
between the ground and top of the tower. That depends on you and the
tower being at the same height. You can determine the distance to the
tower by starting with the road at right angles to the tower and
driving a measured distance and again using trig to find the distance
to the tower, but this depends on things not only being level but the
road being straight and level and your ability to find a point where
the road is at a right angle to the tower.

So rephrased you are using right triangles to find the distance to the
tower and based on that another right triangle to find the height.
(time to study your trig functions).

Depending on your ability to determine the location of the right
angle, how level the land, the distance to the tower, and your angle
measuring ability you could come up with an error between a few
percent and as much as 20% or even more.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com