In November 2003, my new US Tower TX-455 became stuck
in the fully extended position and I could not crank
it down. I asked for suggestions, wisdom, similar
experiences, etc. here on TowerTalk. I received quite
a few replies. Several suggested the sections might
have jammed, some said high winds might have bent or
twisted a section and a few said to check the winch to
see if it was jammed.
After having my brother-in-law, the mechanical genius,
over for a July 4th cook-out, he determined the
winch's clutch had malfunctioned causing the winch
brake pads to seize. He rather easily got the clutch
to work again properly and we lowered the tower.
I had already ordered a replacement parts kit from the
winch manufacturer so Mike replaced all winch
components and now the tower is fully functionally
again.
Here is what I learned so I am passing this along to
others in hopes you can learn from my mistake. Like
most hams, I had wanted to get my antennas as high in
the air as possible. I had always cranked my tower up
to the maximum height. That was fine until the night
last November of very high winds. I went out in the
dark and stupidly cranked the winch in the wrong
direction. That's when the clutch malfunctioned and
the brake pads stuck.
The solution? Not to crank the tower up all the way.
Cranking it up to within a foot or two of the top
would have given me a margin of error to have realized
I was stupidly cranking in the wrong direction and I
don't think it would have become stuck.
Yes, the winch is marked for which direction to crank.
Stupid me failed to take a flashlight outside that
fateful night so that was another problem -- I
couldn't see the winch decal telling me which way to
crank to get it coming down.
It's down now for feedline maintenance, but when I
crank it back up later this week, believe me, I will
not crank it up to the full 55 feet. Sacrificing a
couple of feet of height is well worth not repeating
this incident again!
BTW, Mike says he's not too impressed with the Fulton
boat winch on the tower and recommends we consider
installing a more heavy duty winch in the future.
I hope this experience will help someone else in the
future avoid this type of situation.
73, N4KZ
(Soon to have a 3-el SteppIR yagi at 53 feet instead
of 55 feet!)
=====
David Greer
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