On 10/31/2013 9:24 AM, Chris wrote:
There are a lot of other ways for the cable to get snagged and hung up. It can get
caught under the edge of the baseplate, around the motor/winch, stuff on the ground, the
edge of my roof, other stuff on the tower, a bolt that sticks out a little far somewhere
on the tower, etc. The fact that cable damage has happened to people I know in at least
4-5 instances dictates that it is an open invitation for Murphy (to repeat an earlier
post). This is almost like saying "I've never been in a car accident so I don't
wear a seatbelt." YMMV.
You plan for the worst and hope for the best. You won't know the answer
until you've run the thing to the stops a dozen or so time in all kinds
of weather and even then it comes with no guarantee.
A well engineered system "should" work, but this is what Murphy lives
for. There are just too many things that can go wrong even on guyed
towers. I had a rotator miss the limit switches on a windy day and
ruined 5 runs of coax. Hence my dislike for rotators that require a
mechanical brake because the drive train doesn't have enough resistance
to hold the antennas. A crank up has a lot more possibilities. For
remote operation I'd have cameras capable of covering the whole thing
and switches monitoring the deflection of the side arms.
OTOH I'd feel safer watching it and even then it's easy for one person
to miss a lot of things.
73,
Roger (K8RI)
Chris
KF7P
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