Bear in mind that when you remote control something that you cannot see, you
need to have some basic safety precautions in place, like interlocks and
position feedback. A friend has a crank up tower (without positive pull
down), and had it hang up while retracting one night. The winch keeps
unspooling the cable, leaving the upper tower sections essentially supported
by friction. I forgot why he went out there to look at, but he mentioned it
was pretty scary, looking up at the tower with a flashlight and realizing
that at any moment it could break loose and fall.
Also, what if something is stuck in the tower lattice, and you push the up
or down button, having your tower do a nice imitation of a kitchen vegetable
slicer.
Seems that it wouldn't be too difficult in these days of modern programmable
logic controllers costing less than $100 to rig up a suitable encoder and
feedback that would detect if things are awry (heck, garage door openers do
it). And, no, I wouldn't trust any sort of PC software to do a life safety
function, which this is.
----- Original Message -----
From: "WD0M" <wd0m@centurytel.net>
To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 1:11 PM
Subject: [TowerTalk] US Towers TX-472MDPL Remote Control
> Would anyone using the US Towers TX-472 with the motorized system let me
> know if there is an alternative to purchasing the remote control kit from
> US Towers to raise/lower the tower from the shack? Being basically lazy,
> I'd like to be able to raise and lower the tower from inside the
> house. The HOA wants me to lower the tower when I'm not using it. Rather
> than trudge through the snow in the winter time, I'd rather push a button.
>
> 73,
> Joe
> WD0M
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless
Weather Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any
questions and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
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