[Tagging] mast / tower / communication_tower (again)

SelfishSeahorse selfishseahorse at gmail.com
Fri Oct 26 15:40:51 UTC 2018


On Fri, 26 Oct 2018 at 01:58, Greg Troxel <gdt at lexort.com> wrote:
>
> This reliance on guys does not align with engineering reality.  guys are
> needed depending on forces/loading, and there can be unguyed masts, that
> are exactly like guyed masts but a bit shorter.

I agree.

> > A tower is a tall, slim free-standing structure, usually with internal
> > access. (Possible include from wiki: "Towers are specifically distinguished
> > from "buildings <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building>" in that they are
> > not built to be habitable but to serve other functions.")

Imho, the current definition of man_made=tower -- 'A tower is a
building, which is higher than it is wide' -- is nonsensical. A tower
can be a building (if it has walls and a roof) but it doesn't have to
be a building -- for instance, i wouldn't call an open lookout tower
[1] or the Eiffel Tower [2] buildings.

[1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Gurtenturm.JPG
[2]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tour_Eiffel_Wikimedia_Commons.jpg

> For an example of something used in communications (an American thing,
> but totally normal and other countries surely have equivalent things
> with the same characteristics):
>
>   http://www.rohnnet.com/rohn-65g-tower
>
> which says right there can be up to 500 feet when guyed and 80 feet not
> guyed.  But it's the same thing in both cases -- it just needs more
> support when taller where the forces get bigger.

I'd call this is a -- either guyed or not guyed -- mast (because there
is no internal access).

> As I said earlier, things that are maybe 10cm in diameter are usually
> called masts.  These are very minor and not really used in
> telecom/broadcasting.

Do you call this [1] a mast in the USA?

[1]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LeifersexTimZentrum.jpg

> So maybe we just need
>
>   man_made=antenna_support_structure
>
> for all things which are not buildings and basically exist to support
> antennas, and avoid the tower/mast word choice, which is pretty clearly
> contentious and/or confusing.

I'm not very convinced because that would mean that everything from
this tiny mast on a roof [1] to the Tokyo Tower [2] would be tagged
man_made=antenna_support_structure.

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Tower

Regards

Markus



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