jstarr@anad (James Starr USAISC Anniston) (08/09/85)
Hi Rick. .. Guess I had better get into this roof mount tower bit as I have had lots of experence in this. When I was in the army (22 years) we were always moving from place to place, many times in government quarters. There was very little you could do when it cant to installing anything even semi-permanantly. I took a 10 ft roof mount tower section, bolted the legs to 2X8s 10 ft long. Then I manhandled it 'till it was straddle the roof peak. Then I guyed the tower to each roof corner (4 times). Then I put a 15 meter beam on a 10 foot mast section (with a rotor) above the tower, plus a 6 element 2 meter beam 5 ft above that!! Next I guyed from the rotor to the same place the tower was guyed. Now this sounds like a huge mass (not mess) not to bolted down, but by keeping all the guys tight I used this set-up on several houses with nary an incedent of any type. With 2 sets of guys (one at the top and one at the middle) there was no chance for the wind to get any lever action to topple the mess. The trick (I guess) was ALWAYS making sure ALL the guys were tight! This survived much rough weather including huricane force winds that up- rooted 2 trees in my front yard. Jim Starr WA4QLB