Quote Originally Posted by scsmith42 View Post
Cwby, that’s some nice looking work.

DaveC, I used to work for a tower engineering and manufacturing company. Communication towers are designed for a specific loading of antennas and coaxial lines. Let’s say that you are an FM radio station building a new radio tower, and you would like to be able to rent space out to cell companies, local 2-way radio companies, etc. Unfortunately there is no way of knowing what these potential future tower loads may be, so the tower designer will make an educated guess about future loading when the tower is designed and fabricated.

So time goes by and your tower is loaded up to the original design specs, but now you have more folks wanting to rent space on the tower. In order to accommodate the additional loading, the existing tower has to be strengthened (if possible - not all towers can be upgraded). For a solid round bar tower, the solution is to add sleeves around the existing legs and either add, or replace the inner members as needed. Guy wires and anchors also may need to be upgraded.

It is not easy to find someone to do Competent aerial welding work on a communication tower. Back in 1991 I spent some time in Fargo ND in January welding on the top of a 1000’ TV tower. The upper section of the tower had pipe legs, and the weep holes in one leg had gotten clogged up when the tower section was galvanized and quality control missed it. Over time the Pipe leg Filled Up with a few feet of water, froze and split the leg. I spent most of a day on top of that tower fabricating and installing temporary braces, welding a sleeve in place and then adding new permanent bracing. I still remember how bitterly cold it was working at 1000’ in Fargo ND in January!

To do the work I rented a trailer mounted welding machine and torch from a local welding company. The tower was already rigged with a triple drum winch when I arrived and we lifted the entire trailer up to the top of the tower so I could do the work.
Thanks for that explanation! 1000' in the air in Fargo in Jan! Yikes. They couldn't pay me enough even if I was competent at that!