about our products

There are (3) things that make our patented tilt-over towers unique: 

1) Safety. They require no climbing. They are installable and serviceable from the ground. Once vertical, the tower can be rotated from the ground to adjust the azimuth. 

2) Appearance. No ugly guy wires or supports. They resemble flag poles, and are much more aesthetically appealing than bulky lattice towers on the market. Great for jobsites, new subdivisions, inside the city, parks of all kinds or your back yard. 

3) Most Economical. For comparable towers of similar height, our towers are less expensive when including installation costs, and less complicated.

  Our foundation requirements are comparatively minimal. We require a 12” diameter hole drilled to a depth of 6 to 7’ deep and about 6-10 sacks (a bit more in sandy soils, fill to grade) of Quikrete. (See our DIY Installation Instructions for further details.) Most fencing contractors can usually drill the mounting hole and install the base section for you. Compare this to the foundation for a free standing lattice mast, which requires an excavated foundation for several yards of steel reinforced concrete.

  The base section is cemented into a mounting hole (post-hole) in the ground. No additional support is needed. 

  The Model LM-4 Self-Supporting Tower at 75’ consists of a square base section and 4 round sections of high-strength, galvanized steel. The longest section is about 21 feet in length and weighs approximately 600 pounds. The wind ratio for Model LM-4 Self-Supporting Tower is designed to handle a 16” dish antenna at 60’ and a 10” dish at 75’.  Please See our product catalog for more details.

  Our self-supporting towers (masts) tilt-over to allow you to install the radio antennae from the ground as well as adjust it and service it from the ground. Once vertical, the tower can be rotated from the ground to dial in the best reception for the receiver. 

  We have different sized stock towers that vary from 30’ to 85’ supporting an 18” diameter dish. We now go to 95’ to accommodate a 12” dish. At lower heights, these towers can support substantially larger dishes or other loads. We are open to requests to meet any specific needs you may have.

  Yes, starting at 30’, however, all of our towers can be used with antenna placed at lower levels. For serious inquiries, please let us know what you require and we will be happy to consider designing a custom tower to meet your needs at no additional charge. 

  We use a skid steer drill and we purchase our auger bits from either Bobcat or a company called Digga.  They sell the drill, extensions, and bits.  However, most rental places should carry the skid steer and all the drill bits with the extensions that you need for the 12”x72” hole at a minimal rental cost.

  No. They support Backhaul, Relay or MicroPop applications requiring multiple radios. For example, our LM-5 Self-Supporting Tower supports 4.2 square feet at 60’ to handle backhaul and sector access points. 

  No. We do not suggest raising or lowering the tower during any windy days or bad weather. 

    Usually not, but each state/local municipality and the FAA has different restrictions or requirements. Please check with the laws and regulations in your area.

  Good question. All engineering materials are subject to a stress-strain relationship. Most masts are made of carbon steel, and strain (flexing) is produced when wind forces act on the mast and antenna structures. The higher the wind, the more the tower or mast is displaced. The effect of wind induced “sway” may be reduced by using guy wires, but not eliminated because the steel guy wires stretch when stressed by wind forces acting on the tower. Even skyscrapers sway in the wind. Sears (now Willis) Tower in Chicago sways as much as 3 feet in each direction in heavy winds. For 25 years, this building was the world’s tallest skyscraper. It was made possible by a revolutionary design based on a tubular steel frame. Our masts use tubular steel in a similar way.

Free standing (non-guyed) towers are mostly either monopole towers, like ours, or lattice towers with three or four cross-braced cords. Lattice towers generally sway less than monopoles. The disadvantage of lattice towers is that the cords and lattice braces result in a much larger area exposed to wind to support a given load. That means freestanding monopoles can support the same radio/antenna package at greater heights than comparable freestanding lattice towers.

  The WaveNano is a 10” diameter dish and integrated radios operating at around 60GHz. The antenna has a gain of 41 db, and a beam width of only 1 degree. These radios are generally used at short range for very high data throughput.  Some WISP operators are now using these as CPEs.  They are often mounted on building structures.  60 GHz paths are  degraded by rain, snow, and fog, therefore most of these radios revert to 5GHz “backup link” in weather. (There are numerous anecdotes of 60gHz link failures in rain or fog on the internet.)

Because these radios are relatively small (e.g., 10” diameter) they produce far less load on the mast, and minimized sway.  (A 10” diameter dish has only 1/3 the wind drag of an 18” diameter dish)

At 1 mile, 1 degree is about 92 feet either side of center. If the “sway” in the mast in a heavy wind is  1.5 feet (1.4  degrees) side to side with respect to the Access Point, there would essentially be no loss. If the sway is directly toward or away from the access point, the elevation of the antenna would be tilted about 1.3 degrees, and there would be a loss of a little more than 3dBi to be compensated for in the path budget.   Alternatively, a stiffer mast could be employed, or perhaps the link allowed to revert to built-in backup 5GHz mode during periods of high winds.  If required, we can supply estimated deflection data for particular situations.

We have not received any customer complaints or anecdotal reports of degradation in link performance due to winds.  Some of the masts have been in operation for about 5 years.