On 5/25/2014 2:56 AM, Chuck Smallhouse wrote:
A story for those of you using Phillistran cable for guying a tower.
I was talking to a ham that lives in far N. CA, in area that is
subject to wildfires. A couple of years ago the area had a bad
wildfire that moved in the direction of his QTH, in a somewhat rural
area. Even though the area around his home was quite well cleared,
they couldn't save his workshop where most of his test equipment and
ham equipment was located.
When he returned after a mandatory evacuation and surveyed the damage
, he found that not only was his ham shack destroyed, but also his
guyed tower had fallen over. It turned out that he had guyed it
using Phillistrand and that the fire had burned the guys through and
which resulted in the catastrophic demise of his tower and beams.
I guess that the lesson to be learned is, to at least have the bottom
sections of your guys be of steel cable and not any type of flammable
material, especially if you live in a wildfire prone area.
Depends on the size of the fire, but with something like that, it's
quite likely the temperature several hundred feet above (or possibly any
direction) from a large fire would still melt the Phillystran, or
weaken beyond its ability to keep the tower up.
Phillystran comes with instructions to us metal anywhere near possible
fire hazard (paraphrased). Here I have about the last 15 feet made of
EHS. If I need it beyond that, the tower will be much farther down my
priority list.
Phillystran is great stuff, but not in fire prone areas.
73
Roger K8RI (with all Phillystran guys)
Chuck, W7CS, with no Phillistrand guys .
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