Batboard

I am looking for some information on ant tower sites.

What would the insurance cost per year for a 300' guyed tower?
What are the FCC regulations about lighting for a tower this tall?
Will the FCC allow a lisence for vhf on a tower this tall?

Any other info would be great.

THANKS

don't forget to put a red light on top

1st. it would depend on where it is located? why 300'? No mountains around? if you had a mountain or tall building to mount an antenna. you would save a lots of $$$ on the tower alone, the line loss, the output power, the HOA's (if any that will object). but without more info. just call the insurance co. & get a quote. they will be happy to give you one.

bjlf wrote:I am looking for some information on ant tower sites.

What would the insurance cost per year for a 300' guyed tower?
What are the FCC regulations about lighting for a tower this tall?
Will the FCC allow a lisence for vhf on a tower this tall?

Any other info would be great.

THANKS

To answer your questions in order....

Insurance question - Call your agent. Different areas of the country will have different rates and requirements.

The FAA dictates the lighting requirements and the FCC enforces it. You need to file an application with the FAA and their different lighting and painting requirements that vary from place to place.

Willl the FCC allow a VHF antenna at 300', you bet ya. But before the license is granted a coordinator needs to assign a frequency. Depending on the usage dictates what coordinator you need to go to.

Mark

The Feds once had, and probably still do have, a
publication called "Objects Affecting Navigable Airspace."
All the information about lighting, lighting supervision,
heights, blah blah blah is in this book.

I can't recall if the book came from FCC or FAA.

This is an exsisting tower site that may be given to our dept.
no cost for tower, just maint and insurance.

Thanks

bjlf wrote:This is an exsisting tower site that may be given to our dept.
no cost for tower, just maint and insurance.

Thanks

You need to find someone who's an expert in these matters. This is NOT something that you want to undertake based on advice from a web forum.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

1. FIND AN EXPERT.
2. You really need to have the tower inspected by someone who has a clue (and preferably a PE stamp). You don't want to take a donation of something that's going to require $100K worth of maintenance in the first year. Once you own the tower, you will be REQUIRED to do the maintenance to keep it in the air... a light bulb burns out, you're about to drop a grand or two. Guy-wires age and need replacement? Big money.
3. What's the ASR for the tower? Is the site still current and registered? If not... bad juju.
4. Do you have the budget to deal with many thousands of dollars a year of maintenance, plus the occasional $25K-$50K hit? Plus the insurance?
5. When you find a tower guru, he'll be able to help you out with the insurance issues.

A 100-foot tower behind a building isn't a hugely major deal... you get up to a 300-footer, and it gets very expensive. You need to be very much aware of all the issues involved before you jump in... or you'll likely end up totally screwing the department's budget.

I once belonged to a repeater group that had, used
and maintained a 160-foot tower just North of Danbury CT.
The tower was a continuous headache for all of the reasons,
plus others, mentioned above, and as soon it could be
done the site was moved to a nearby location that was
almost as good for transmitting but did not have the problems a
160-foot tower presents.

where is this exsisting tower? just curious? Payson, AZ. only AM radio station has 3 towers with guys, 210' tall (site elevation 5000' AGL) drive 30 miles away & you can't pick it up.
Its a headach ok. and when the Red FAA lights go out about every other month or so. Got to climb to change it out.
_____________________________________________
give us a clue as to where its at. of course anything
you say will will self-destruct in 5 seconds

First of all you need to obtain the FAA tower registration number. It should be posted as a very visible sign
at the base of the tower. Going into the FCC "ASR" database you can find out all the information on the tower.

Second, if you go to the FAA and obtain Advisory Circular 70/7460-1K, it will give you all the tower marking
and lighting information. This is available as a PDF file. It is rather large on the order of almost 5 megs.

Your next issue is the big question of just how old the tower is. Having worked in the cellular field for about 18
years, I have probably visited more towers that the average person on here. If the tower is more than say
10 years, it probably won't comply with the insurance company requirements. There have been a number of
changes in the specs for towers recently that makes older towers very un-attractable. The tower steel
needs to meet new requirements if the loading is changed

Like has been said before, you should get a certified PE Engineer to survey the tower and give you a report.
This will cost you several thousand dollars, but is well worth the price. It will cover the tower steel, foundation,
guy wires, guy wire anchors and condition of the tower lighting. People that work around towers all the time
could probably give you some gut feeling condition of things by looking at what is there. However the insurance
company will not stand for that and probably demand a full inspection.

Some of the fine points of the inspection cover issues like is the tower constructed with solid steel legs or
made up with what is called pipe or hollow leg construction. The pipe type construction is a bad issue on
older towers as you can't see the inside of the tower legs to see how much corrosion has taken place. Are the
drain holes at the bottom of each section of the tower legs still open to allow moisture to drain out? What
shape are the bolts in that hold the tower sections together? Are the guy wires showing any signs of corrosion
or rust? Are the turn buckles at the guy anchors rusted? Is the steel plate all the guy wires connected to
where it comes out of the cement showing any signs of corrosion? If the cement is covered with dirt and this
steel arm or plate is coming out of the dirt, take a shovel to the dirt and find the cement. What does the steel
look like that was under the dirt. Normally this shows bad signs of rusting if the dirt was on it.

Look at the tower itself and how the antennas mounted on it look. Are the bolts that attach the brackets
holding the antennas rusted at all? Are any of the bolts and brackets loose? Are the coax cables secured
to the tower in a proper manor? I don't mean using copper wire twisted around the leg and coax. That is
probably the worst thing you could have. The copper wire touching the galvanized steel will leach out the
zinc over time and you will start to have rusting at that location. These wires also cause intermod problems
with any and all the radios that are at the site. The higher the transmitter power, the more the problem
will show up.

What shape is the grounding system at the tower? If all you see is a single # 10 copper wire going from
the tower into the ground, your in trouble. You should see a number of tinned copper wires leaving the
tower legs and going into the ground. You should also have a copper ground bar on the tower about
where the coax cables make the right angle bend and turn to go into the equipment shelter. The coax
cables should be mounted neatly under the ice bridge on the way to the shelter. If you have a rats nets
tangle of cables, the tower owner didn't have much control or care how the tower looked. Walk away from
a site like this.

You might get lucky and find the tower mfg plate on the tower that provides the tower model number,
serial number and date it was built. This information is gold when you need to change anything on the tower.
Even the PE engineer will be looking for this information in order to do the inspection.

Hope this helps steer you in the direction you need to go and gives you something to think about.

As far as coverage from the tower, that will depend on a number of factors. The big thing here is
what is the land around you like? Is it flat, rolling, hilly or mountainous? What frequency band are you
using? What size coax and how old is it? What type and gain is the antenna? What transmitter power
level are you planning to use? What is the site noise floor level? This will effect how well you will be able
to receive. The questions just go on and on.

To try and obtain a new license for operation at this tower site, that will probably take you any where
from 3 months to a year. Sort of depends on where you are, how many other users are around you on
the same frequency and what service group you fall into. Don't forget unless this is for a public safety
or ham use, you will pay through the nose for coordination and then you also will have to pay the FCC.
Now the coordinator may also require you to drop down your output power (ERP) from the tower to reduce
causing interference to others. This may negate the use of the tall tower before your through.

Have fun with this. Haven't even got into the insurance issues.

Jim

bjlf wrote:I am looking for some information on ant tower sites.

What would the insurance cost per year for a 300' guyed tower?
What are the FCC regulations about lighting for a tower this tall?
Will the FCC allow a lisence for vhf on a tower this tall?

Any other info would be great.

THANKS

To the OP: Do you get the feeling that you're sticking your foot into a bear trap yet? You should. If you're going to do this, you need to go into it with lots of knowledge... do not sign anything/commit to anything unless you're 100% absolutely sure of what you're doing.