Mast or Tower?
The terms "mast" and "tower" are often used interchangeably. However, in structural engineering terms, a tower is a self-supporting or cantilevered structure, while a mast is held up by stays or guys. Broadcast engineers in the UK use the same terminology. In US broadcast engineering, a tower is an antenna structure attached to the ground, whereas a mast is a vertical antenna support mounted on some other structure (which itself may be a tower, a building, or a vehicle). Masts (to use the civil engineering terminology) tend to be cheaper to build but require an extended area surrounding them to accommodate the guy wires. Towers are more commonly used in cities where land is in short supply.
There are a few borderline designs that are partly free-standing and partly guyed, called additionally guyed towers. For example:
- The Gerbrandy tower consists of a self-supporting tower with a guyed mast on top.
- The few remaining Blaw-Knox towers do the opposite: they have a guyed lower section surmounted by a freestanding part.
- Zendstation Smilde, a tall tower with a guyed mast on top (guys go to ground)
- Torre de Collserola, a guyed tower with a guyed mast on top (tower portion is not free-standing)
Read more about this topic: Radio Masts And Towers
Famous quotes containing the word mast:
“To coöperate in the highest as well as the lowest sense, means to get our living together. I heard it proposed lately that two young men should travel together over the world, the one without money, earning his means as he went, before the mast and behind the plow, the other carrying a bill of exchange in his pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long be companions or coöperate, since one would not operate at all. They would part at the first interesting crisis in their adventures.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)