Shattered pipe dreams

Back in the dark ages of my ham radio youth, Rohn 25G was the holy grail of radio tower for me and my teen buddy hams. I had a 60 foot high tower of Rohn 11G holding up my 4 element triband beam, secured to various fence posts and tree trunks using 5/8 inch polypropylene rope. In those days I didn't know about how much rope stretches, or how badly polyprope rope deteriorates from UV exposure. It didn't matter that everything in my antenna system was inadequate for the job, it did the job, for as long as I had the tower in the air.

My buddy Rick WB4NFQ up the street had 50 feet of Rohn 25G supporting his tribander. 25G was at the time about twice as expensive as the 11G I had, and was a much better support structure. I just didn't have the money to buy the "good stuff", so I was always secretly jealous of him. I always said to myself that if I ever got a place of my own, I was going to put up a 100 foot Rohn 25G tower. I'd show him, I would!

Then I got out of the hobby for about 25 years, and time marched on. The gold standard of ham radio towers moved upwards as it should, and I got a lot rounder in the middle.

Last year, I got the ham radio bug again, bought some used equipment, and got back on the air. I put up a simple inverted vee at first, then bought a 160m OCF dipole, and finally put up a full-wave 75m loop antenna. Always in the back of my mind was the intention of putting up that century-height tower.

So, over the ensuing year I accumulated sections of Rohn 25G tower, with the intention of putting up that hundred footer. My initial intention was to put it next to the house, with a house bracket at the 30 foot level. I would then put two levels of guy wires, one at about 65 feet, and the next at about 95 feet. Never mind that 25G tower isn't really strong enough to do what I wanted to do with it - my experience with 11G in my youth told me that anything is possible! I would put up the tower, and from it would run all manner of directional wire antennas, and would put up some sort of 5 band beam antenna on top, all but guaranteeing me DXCC honor roll within a month.

Now, every time I put up a new experimental antenna of some sort, or do some work on an existing antenna, I hear this from Donna: "Why can't you just put up just one antenna?" I have tried my best to explain to her that in general you really need a different antenna for every band you operate, but that has fallen on deaf ears. She's not a ham, and has no intention of ever becoming one. She has her cellphone if she ever wants to talk to someone in Montenegro.

So, I knew that I was making a mistake by telling Donna of my intentions for the tower sections.

"You're not putting that thing up next to the house, are you? It will attract lightning and the house will burn down," she proclaimed. "And if it ever fell down, it would damage the roof!"

"Well, I *was* going to do that, because it would make supporting it a lot easier, and I wouldn't need as much feedline and antenna control line," I retorted, thinking that a logical explanation would sway her over to my side. "Besides, the tower would be grounded, so any lightning stroke would mostly be diverted to the ground."

"You're not putting that thing up next to the house, are you!" It wasn't a question this time.

"It's not going to have guy wires, will it?" That was a question and an order at the same time. We've been together long enough that I can fill in the blanks.

"No, I guess not since you put it that way," I cleverly replied, knowing now that I was out of options, since 25G will only go to 40 feet unguyed.

So now I have 100 feet of Rohn 25G in a neat stack in my back yard. The only way I'm going to be able to get a tower up that passes the S.O. test now is to get a self-supporting crankup, and about the highest I'm going to be able to afford is going to be about 55 feet - or not high enough for the radiation angle of whatever beam antenna I put up there to clear the hill behind the house.

Anybody need about 100 feet of Rohn 25G?