Jan 21, 2014

Our tower, though it's in a valley basin, is too close to the airport. Gotta call up the FAA now...

I guess we're small enough to not need to worry about Fort Harrison, but we exceed the FAA notification for HLN RGNL by 87mtr. What do we need to do in order to start(and possibly expedite) the "FAA notification" process? Here are our new determination results:

DETERMINATION Results PASS SLOPE(50:1): NO FAA REQ-RWY 10499 MTRS OR LESS & 5944.81 MTRS (5.94479 ) KM AWAY Type C/R Latitude Longitude Name Address Lowest Elevation (m) Runway Length (m) AIRP C 46-37-33.00N 112-06-35.00W FORT HARRISON AAF LEWIS AND CLARK HELENA, MT 1234.4 853.39999999999998 FAIL SLOPE (100:1)FAA REQ - 3651.0 Meters(11978.2 Feet) away & exceeds by 87.0 Meters (285.430 Feet) Type C/R Latitude Longitude Name Address Lowest Elevation (m) Runway Length (m) AIRP R 46-36-20.00N 111-59-51.00W HELENA RGNL LEWIS AND CLARK HELENA, MT 1161.8 2743.1999999999998 FAIL SLOPE (100:1)FAA REQ - 3797.0 Meters(12457.2 Feet) away & exceeds by 86.0 Meters (282.149 Feet) Type C/R Latitude Longitude Name Address Lowest Elevation (m) Runway Length (m) AIRP R 46-36-30.00N 111-59-52.00W HELENA RGNL LEWIS AND CLARK HELENA, MT 1161.8 2743.1999999999998 FAIL SLOPE (100:1)FAA REQ - 4752.0 Meters(15590.3 Feet) away & exceeds by 76.0 Meters (249.34 Feet) Type C/R Latitude Longitude Name Address Lowest Elevation (m) Runway Length (m) AIRP R 46-36-14.00N 111-58-50.00W HELENA RGNL LEWIS AND CLARK HELENA, MT 1161.8 2743.1999999999998 Your Specifications NAD83 Coordinates Latitude 46-35-20.8 north Longitude 112-02-19.5 west Measurements (Meters) Overall Structure Height (AGL) 22 Support Structure Height (AGL) 14 Site Elevation (AMSL) 1264 Structure Type BANT - Building with Antenna on top

The region FAA was super-chill: "Yah wanna put up a tower? Where? Bah that should be fine! Just go through our online form and we'll let you know if you can do it in a couple months or so!" less than a month later: "Yeah. You can build. Thanks for letting us know there's a tiny tower there. You've got a year and a half to make it happen. kthanksbye."

I like working with these people.

Now that we know that the feds will let us build a tower on our roof, we just need to get permission from the land owner. Perhaps we can get the local upstart internet company to help us out. Treasure State Internet might be able to use some of our tower space! First let's talk to the land owner.