Forgive me if I missed the first email(s) on this subject if I misinterpret
what you are talking about. I used Harbor Freight 8000# winches , two of them,
until they changed to the ones with a chrome lever. I have an experience with
one of them where I started letting down my 50' Rohn 25 tower and it
freewheeled. I jammed on the brake handle to engage and bent the mast. Luckily
saved my Steppir but did not do the mast much good.
There is a Northern Tool or Northern Farm Tool supply I get a catalog from
every once in awhile that sells 'Worm Gear' winches. I bought the 8000# one
from them and it is the cat's meow for raising and lowing my combination Rohn
45/25 tower. That is 930# of tower tilted at the base and can be a little
intimidating standing by it raising or lowering. But it works very well.
Northern now only shows the 12,000# worm gear winches now. Ramsey I believe is
the brand. I have never found a better winch for raising and lowering a tower
because with the worm gear it holds in any position. I have built big Quad
arrays with this setup. You can look on my QRZ/KI7M page down near the bottom
and see pictures of the winch and tower. Don't believe I remove that yet from
my Keizer days.
Now at a new QTH outside Salem in the country and got a Rohn 55 tower up 117'
but plan on setting up my two section crankup one again. It is ideal for
changing antennas and being able to work on things like Quads or Yagi's from a
10 or 12 foot step ladder. Be aware, this design while it has worked for me
exceptional well for 40 foot through my 80 foot tower is not recommended by
Rohn. That type of winch is not recommended for overhead lifting. Those type
cost a whole lot more if you can find them. The 8000# I got cost about
1200-1300 dollars shipped. Had to get a custom mount built that was another
$500 or so. Only problem with that is I can't turn on the 'freewheel' switch to
unspool the wire without power. That may be a good feature after my experience
seeing my tower speeding towards the ground and jamming on the break though. By
the way, the 40 foot model of rohn 25 I built used a small hand crank boat
winch and was great. 50 foot of tower got a little hard to hand crank
and that is when I got into harbor freight winches. Funny how it takes a
winch that is like 5-8 sizes stronger to raise a tower weighing like 1/8th the
winches specifications. But that is how it is. When I built the two section
(50' of Rohn 45 and 50' of Rohn 25) it became evident no hand winch could be
used for that. Had to be something with more power than I could crank.
Terry
KI7M
> On February 22, 2018 at 10:56 AM Wilson Lamb wrote:
>
>
> Interesting stuff about pulldowns, etc.
> FWIW, I have used a couple of small units for yard work, raising Field
> day towers, etc..
> I have had both Harbor Freight and Northern Tool winches and feel the NT
> ones are a cut above.
> They have nicer control systems and seem more weatherproof.
> I have a larger big brand, Maybe Warn, 5000 lb winch on my flatbed
> trailer, from NT.
> It's about 20 yr old and has withstood incredible abuse, including being
> outside all these years, and still works fine.
> One of the main uses has been pulling logs onto the trailer for going to
> the sawmill.
> It has the original cable and swaged hook. I often thing of recabling,
> but havent gotten to it...
> The only dangerous thing it does is raise a 40' tiltover Rohn 25 for FD.
> I keep everyone away when it's going up.
> I don't know which of these winches have actual brakes. I think they rely
> on the gear train for holding loads.
> I've never had one give under load at all.
> It would be easy too use a cable grip and short cable to snub off any
> load you wanted to hold.
> WL
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