FW: City Of Annapolis.MD. selling radio tower and land

[Chip Fetrow]

As someone who has built and maintained a lot of towers I have to  
ask:  What are they smoking?  I have contracted large and tall towers  
to be painted and I do not recall one EVER being five figures, much  
less six figures.  I recall the largest being 860 feet tall, with a  
five foot face and +/- 4 inch diameter legs.  That entire tower was  
about $360k from the first core drillings to being on the air.  The  
tower in question may have a face of 8 to 12 INCHES, and legs under  
1-1/4 inches.

$150,000 to paint a 240 foot AM radiator?  They cannot be serious.  It  
could be REPLACED for less than that!  The great thing about AM  
radiators is they must sit out in a field, in the open with no cars  
parked under them.  In this case at least 1/4 wave needs to be clear  
in all directions at 870 kHz.  That is roughly 283 feet in every  
direction from the base of the tower (excluding a small cabinet for  
the ATU (Antenna Tuning Unit) which no one would care if it got paint  
droplets on it, and could easily be covered with plastic.

Also, towers are painted with a mitt, not a brush or a sprayer.  They  
don't drop much paint.  What little paint that does fall from up high  
will solidify on the way down.

Anyone who would buy the tower hoping to rent it tack to Bay  
Broadcasting would be hosed anyway as IT APPEARS WYRE may have a FCC  
Construction Permit to move the station to "Essex," MD to serve  
Baltimore.  The CP is on Radio-Locator, but not on the FCC MB web  
page.  This is not unusual, the FCC MB web site has been broken for a  
few months ever since they have "improved" it.

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=70352

http://radio-locator.com/info/WYRE-AM

Finally, I know some towers are not maintained properly, but the tower  
will need to be repainted because of fade LONG before the paint  
fails.  Also, nearly all towers still standing today are galvanized  
steel which is then painted.  I only know of two, very old, black iron  
towers.  You can bet the owners of those towers know what they have  
and are TOTALLY up to speed on maintenance and paint.


THIS tower is pretty old, and COULD be a black iron tower.

It is OLD and could be a tower not properly maintained.

Just because it is old doesn't mean it is not maintained.

--chip

On Aug 7, 2011, at 12:35 AM, tacos-request at amrad.org wrote:

> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2011 21:57:42 -0400
> From: "William F. Fenn" <bfenn at cox.net>
> Subject: FW: City Of Annapolis.MD. selling radio tower and land
>
> Tower Companies that employ riggers have to pay insurance premiums,  
> meet
> OSHA Safety Standards, insure the paint doesn't get on automobiles  
> that are
> below and down wind while jumping through many other hoops.  If the  
> paint
> gets on any cars they may end up having to pay for a new paint job.   
> They
> may also have to scrape the old paint off the tower, remove rust and  
> prime
> the surface before applying the new paint.  $150,000 may sound a  
> little
> expensibe but is probably not that outrageous when one adds the cost  
> of
> paint and the equiptment needed to do the job to the previously  
> mentioned.
>
> Bill
> N4TS