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Build Your Own Babel

Members of the ISP-Wireless list discuss the pros and cons of building your own tower. Most of them recommend deploying a cheap tower instead of building your own.

[March 5, 2001]

On the ISP-Wireless list in February, PR queried,

"Does anybody have advice on how to home-build a tower?"

A number of respondents suggested it might not be the best solution:

[RB warned] "Personally, I don't consider it a very good idea to build it yourself, unless you're a mechanical engineer and can do all the stress analysis required to make sure it will stay still and stay vertical.

It only takes one instance and one lawyer to ruin your life and/or the life of the person on the tower when it happens. Don't forget to hire a welder certified in the materials that you're making it out of, get the whole thing treated for corrosion resistance after you're done, and have all the welds inspected or x-rayed to make sure they're good.

If you absolutely must do this, I'd reverse-engineer the commercially-made tower most similar to what I was interested in building. But I would definitely not deploy it for anything except personal use, and even then I'd be doggone careful about where I did that."

[AM added] "There is a lot involved in structural steel engineering: compression of materials, strength of bolts and other materials, different types of steel. Would you build your own hang glider? Or parachute? Or airplane?"

Others recommended looking into the cheaper pre-made towers instead:

[MS advised] "To each his own, but I feel that you could purchase a Trylon 90-foot Self Supporting Titan Tower cheaper than you could build one. Their 96-foot model is only $1999."

[AM agreed] "I doubt there is any money to be saved. Rohn and others have their processes down so efficiently that you can get 10-foot sections for as low as $75. That's pretty amazing."

KM, on the other hand, offered his advice on construction methods:

"I would look into planting some large-diameter aluminum tubing into a concrete base. 20-foot sections of thick-wall six-inch diameter tubing are about $250 each. Get four telescoping sections, weld/flange/bolt them together, and you're 80 feet above ground for about $1,000. There's no climbing it, though: put on an elevator. Try to leave an 80 foot radius for clearance in case it falls. And build a small one first, then a large one, to test your methods."

—End

     

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