Guide to Guyed Towers and Masts
Classifications
There are three classifications of guyed masts, they are:
-
Guyed Mast - rely completely on guy wires to provide stability
-
Guyed Tower - a free standing tower that has guy wires
-
Partially Guyed Tower - base section is a free standing tower with an additional guyed mast added to its top.
Qualities
Although they share some qualities, all three designs are significantly different in terms of engineering and selection.
When selecting a design, the factors to consider are:
-
required performance
-
terrain/environment conditions
-
budget
-
damage to agricultural land (due to footprint), and
-
expected working life.
Strength - height - cost effective
Guyed masts are thin vertical structures with the compressive strength to support its own weight, without the shear strength to stand unsupported.
To counter lateral forces, such as wind loads, diagonally tensioned cables are spaced at equal angles around the base and are attached to the ground.
This design means towers can scale up to staggering heights - currently the tallest constructed guy mast is a massive 628.8m (over 2000 feet!).
Generally, guyed masts are cheaper to construct per metre than free standing towers, although this comes at the expense of a much larger footprint.
In a large scale application, this can limit its use, however for smaller masts, 20m or under, this extra area can be insignificant when compared to the financial savings incurred.
Installation
The most common installations for guyed masts are:
-
small roof mounted guyed masts to improve RF signal for residential properties and buissnesses by overcoming terrain obstructions
-
large towers in remote areas designed as part of a network for long range Point to Point (PtP) transmissions.
If space is not an issue a guyed mast is one of the cheapest ways to gain height for antennas.
Engineer approved recommendation
Due to the complicated nature of tower infrastructure it can prove valuable to have an engineer approved recommendation for a solution that will accommodate a particular project.
We offer a Tower Recommendation Proposal Consultation Service, this provides you with a detailed report that can be used for planning of communication assets.