30ft Tower uprooting
 

Just got back from D.C yesterday to have my neighbor come up and tell me
that my tower almost fell over Sunday during heavy rain and wind storm. He
was able to secure the tower to the upstairs sun deck. What has me wondering
is, the foundation that the tower sits on, sits about 2 inches below the
cement porch which sits about 4 inches above the top soil. Now, the tower
foundation sits an inch higher than the deck. I loosened the tie downs for
the tower and I can move the tower and foundation. It almost looks like the
foundation broke half way down because of the way it "pivots" on top of the
broken lower half of the foundation. Looks like I may have to take the tower
down this weekend and dig up the old foundation and see what happened.
Neighbor said we had alot of rain in a short period of time. It's a good
thing I had disconnected the 2 radios from the feedlines, cause, if that
tower would have come down, it would have pulled both radios out of the
window. ie, Icom 2100 and Icom 706.
Mike
KC2JGA

I'm not clear on your exact situation with the tower. Is the base sitting
on a pad or on a foundation that's several feet down? How tall is the tower
and what's on it? Any guys?
tnx
Hank WD5JFR
"Mike" wrote in message
...
Just got back from D.C yesterday to have my neighbor come up and tell me
that my tower almost fell over Sunday during heavy rain and wind storm. He
was able to secure the tower to the upstairs sun deck. What has me
wondering
is, the foundation that the tower sits on, sits about 2 inches below the
cement porch which sits about 4 inches above the top soil. Now, the tower
foundation sits an inch higher than the deck. I loosened the tie downs for
the tower and I can move the tower and foundation. It almost looks like
the
foundation broke half way down because of the way it "pivots" on top of
the
broken lower half of the foundation. Looks like I may have to take the
tower
down this weekend and dig up the old foundation and see what happened.
Neighbor said we had alot of rain in a short period of time. It's a good
thing I had disconnected the 2 radios from the feedlines, cause, if that
tower would have come down, it would have pulled both radios out of the
window. ie, Icom 2100 and Icom 706.
Mike
KC2JGA

At my previous QTH I had a ROHN 25 at 47 feet length. The base was just
under 2000# of concrete [approximately 4.5 feet deep to get below the
frost line]. The three guy wire anchors were each 700-800#.

Held up fine in 80 mph winds.

Your base doesn't sound too solid. What were/are the base details?

Mike wrote:

Just got back from D.C yesterday to have my neighbor come up and tell me
that my tower almost fell over Sunday during heavy rain and wind storm. He
was able to secure the tower to the upstairs sun deck. What has me wondering
is, the foundation that the tower sits on, sits about 2 inches below the
cement porch which sits about 4 inches above the top soil. Now, the tower
foundation sits an inch higher than the deck. I loosened the tie downs for
the tower and I can move the tower and foundation. It almost looks like the
foundation broke half way down because of the way it "pivots" on top of the
broken lower half of the foundation. Looks like I may have to take the tower
down this weekend and dig up the old foundation and see what happened.
Neighbor said we had alot of rain in a short period of time. It's a good
thing I had disconnected the 2 radios from the feedlines, cause, if that
tower would have come down, it would have pulled both radios out of the
window. ie, Icom 2100 and Icom 706.
Mike
KC2JGA