Tower Help

[w7ni@teleport.com (Stan Griffiths) (Stan Griffiths)]

>A tower really does not need that much maintainence except, of course, to
>take it down every 2-3 years to grease the joints between the sections...

I'd say it depends a lot on how much you crank it up and down.  Some people
use motorized crankups so they can keep it down most of the time to avoid
offending neighbors and protect it from the wind.  If you do this a lot, you
need to keep the cable well greased to avoid wear on the pulleys as well as
keeping the pulley shafts well greased.

One guy I know didn't bother with the grease and the cable wore the edges
off the pulleys.  The cable dropped down on the pulley shaft and jammed
tight.  The motor snapped the cable and the whole crankup telescoped down
REAL FAST.  The tower was permanently damaged and one element bent due to
the sudden stop at the bottom.  Nobody was hurt.  Lucky.  I hate crankups.

BTW, the reason the motor snapped the cable instead of just stalling and
blowing a breaker like it should, is because the owner installed an extra
large motor because he ran it up and down a lot and it was too slow with the
orignal motor . . .

Stan  W7NI@teleport.com