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Radio and TV Masts
Radio and TV Masts are some of the world’s tallest man made structures.
These extremely tall masts are made to support electrical equipment to
broadcast radio and television signals. Although they are extremely tall,
they cannot be compared to skyscrapers, due to their lack of habitable
space. Due to the use of these structures, they are relatively inexpensive,
mainly because they are merely steel lattice and cable. The average cost of
these masts can be determined by squaring the height of the structure. So a
2000 foot mast would cost approximately 4,000,000 USD. Most of these masts
are supported by guy wires (cables).
Mast vs. Tower
A mast in engineering terms is a structure which requires outside support,
such as guy wires, while a tower is self-supporting. In both colloquial
American and British English, the terms tower and mast are interchangeable.
All About Skyscrapers retains the engineering distinction.
Tower
(Seattle Needle)
Mast
(Senior Road TV Tower)
Types of Mast Designs
Parallel-Sided Steel Lattice
The most Common structure
Guy Wire Connection
Base Connection
Blaw-Knox
©2006 James P. Hawkins, All Rights Reserved
www.j-hawkins.com/radio.html
Eiffelized
Towers may be built for the width to taper as height increases. The width
grows smaller exponentially compared to the height. This type of structure
does not require guy wires. This is referred to as being Eiffelized:
©2006 James P. Hawkins, All Rights Reserved
www.j-hawkins.com/radio.html
Riga TV Tower
Illustration by Martins Jegorovs
Other mast placements
Other masts can be placed on building tops to minimize costs; examples of
these can be seen atop the Sears Tower and Empire State Building.
In some cases, even balloons are flown to support a temporary transmitter.
This is often used by the military and amateur radio enthusiasts.
After the modern invention of the cell phone, thousands of towers were
constructed to accommodate the huge boom in the cellular industry. These cell
towers were often considered ugly and out of place. Today, these towers are
being hidden as large trees, or even church towers. |