Draw a vertical segment about 3 inches tall. Label the upper endpoint A and the lower endpoint B. That is the cell phone tower. Starting at point B, draw a horizontal segment 1 inch long to the right. Label the right endpoint C. Connect C to A with a segment.
Segment BC is 25 ft long. Segment AB is 75 ft long. Angle B is a right angle.
You are looking for the length of segment AC, the guy wire length.
Triangle ABC is a right triangle with right angle B.
Sides AB and BC are the legs, and side AC is the hypotenuse.
We can use the Pythagorean Theorem:
(leg1)^2 + (leg2)^2 = (hyp)^2
Let one leg be a, the other leg be b, and let the hypotenuse be c.
Then you have
a^2 + b^2 = c^2
We have a = 75 ft
b = 25 ft
We are looking for c, the length of the hypotenuse.
