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73 Review
by Mike Baker WSCM
The Heights Tower
Number 9 on your Feedback card
Heights Tower Systems
1721 Indian Road
Lapeer MI 48446
Telephone: (313) 667-1 700
Price: Call for price quote.
Systems Aluminum Tower
Hang your aluminum on some aluminum.
As soon as I moved from West Texas to Virginia,
I noticed thai the trees here were
much higher, and the tower I brought with me
just would not put the antennas where they
needed 10 be. Since I found myself in the market
lor a taller lower, I look advantage 01 an
opportunity 10 visit the factory of Heights Tower
Systems in lapeer, Michigan, and meet Drake
Dimitry Jr., its president. t had long been interested
in having an aluminum lower due to their
inherent lower weight and freedom from rust.
The quality materials, good workmanship, and
exceptional customer responsiveness I found
at Heights convinced me that my next tower
would come from this company.
The Heights Tower
Heights has been around since 1959, and
presently otters aluminum towers that are selfsupporting
up to 144'. Greater tower heights
can be achieved by using guys. The unguyed
tower height you can have depends on how
much antenna you plan to plant on top, measured
in ' square feet (SF)" of wind loading near
80 mph. For 144', the maximum is aSF, while at
80' you can use up to 38SF and still be selfsupporting.
The actual tower height and loading
are designed by selecting a combination of
tower sections that come in 8'-long pieces.
Tower section face widths currently range from
35' to 11 '. Heights does not endorse using
more than three sections (24') of any particular
width before tapering to the next width. The
combination of tower section face widths and
tapered design give the tower its strength.
While this review will focus only on the
Heights tower wi th tapered sections and a
hinged base, it is interesting to note that the
company also can provide other types. You can
get a crank-up telescoping unit in up to 34 variations,
or you could opt to use a toldover kit on
the tapered model, with or without the standard
hinged base.
For my new OTH, I selected an 88' tower rated
at 22SF. This model consists of three 30'
sections, three 26' sections, three 22' sections,
and two 18 ' sections. This is a prelly substantial
tower, and you can be prepared to pay
more for an aluminum tower than for a steel
unit. I fell it was worth the higher initial price to
achieve the long life and low maintenance of
aluminum. Also, my experience with guyed
towers has taught me that considerable work
and expense goes into the guy system; this is
often overlooked in comparisons of towers .
42 73 Amateur Radio tcaey» June, 1992
" ."
Photo A Heights Tower sections.
Finall y, ask you r local metallurgical engineer
about how steel sections snap but aluminum
sections bend when they fail.
The sections come from Heights nestled into
bundles, as shown in Photo A. I had expected
to receive 11 separate tower sections off the
truck at delivery, but instead only three bundles
were off-loaded. This makes it easier to ship,
and protects the inner tower sections. I did
have one outer section get bent in shipment by
the freight company where a bundle was obviously
dropped on its end. A lesson learned:
Trucking companies are totally unfriendly about
damage claims unless you inspect the shipment
and note any damage at the time of delivery.
Calling them the next day will not work. As
a result of this problem, Heights has changed
its trucking company and has also designed a
brace to protect the outer section while in shipment.
This was one of many instances where
Heights was highly responsive to customer
input. (Be sure to ask them to brace your order
for shipment.) The sections come in either
straight, tapered, or top designs. For example,
my first three sections consist of two straight
30' units and a 30" taper unit to transition to the
next 26' straight section. As you can also see
in Photo A, the tower sections all use a · Z"
brace. This makes climbing very easy and "foot
friendly,· compared to the bracing used by severar
other tower manufacturers. Tower section
sizes and data are given in Table 1. The tower
sections are double-bolted together with steel
hardware ; you can also order a hardware
upgrade from Heights which provides stainless
steel nuts and bolts. I used all stainless steel
hardware, and hig hly recommend this option.
After all, why buy a rust-free tower and build it
with nuts and bolts that can rust? After swallowing
the initial cost of the tower, this upgrade is
really a minimal cost option.
The supplied tower hinged base gives you
the option of either building the tower on the
ground and hinging it up, or building it section
by section. The hinged base assembly is available
in either heavy-duty steel or in stainless
steel. I chose the stainless steel, and felt the
slight additional cost was well worth it. Heights
does not provide the hinged base in aluminum
in order to avoid corrosive effects; concrete and
aluminum do not like each olher.
With the base also comes a set of Ihree very
hefty steel legs for setting into Ihe concrete
pad. The legs co me with disks welded on to
increase their anchoring ability in the concrete.
The legs are not hot-dip galvanized, so you will
need to spray a cold galvanizing onto the
exposed leg parts aller the tower is installed.
I decided that since the base legs are hollow,
I wanted to provide a drainage path to protect
against freezing. Each leg bottom goes into a 4'
plastic drainage pipe which is used as a form
and is filled with pea gravel to above the bottom
01 the leg. Photo B shows the hinged base and
leg top after Ihe concrete base pad is completed,
but before applying the cold galvaniZing.
I did not bUy a top section with a mast collar
tube section; instead, I used a standard straight
section at the top with a top shelf. Heights
offers both top shelves and rotor shelves, and
will obligingly custom drililhem tor your bearing
and rotor if you provide the data with the order.
You can also obtain a variety of aluminum mast
from Heights; I bought a 16' long piece of 2"
c.c. tubing with a 1/4' wall thickness with my
tower, since it cou ld be included with the freight
charges and tower.
Photo C shows the top shelf on the 18" top
section. Heights originally provided a top shelf
that was built similar to a rotor shelf and used a
single bolt In each leg. After co nferring with
them, I specified a des ign which covered the
tower legs and used two bolts in each leg.
When th ey promptly made the new top she lf,
they also d rilled it for the thrust bearing I