Hello Towertalk folks.
This is a problem that has been addressed to this group before, by me,
and I'm still having LOTS of problems with it. Here's the problem and
what I've tried.
Problem:
Cables on US Tower TX-472 motorized crank up tower get tangled in th
coax arms, get hung up on the tower, get tangled in the wind, and are
generally a nusiance when the tower is lowered (most of the time). It
is such a problem that EVERY time the tower is raised, there is some
sort of failure with the cable bundle.
Here's what's on the tower:
F-12 C4S at top of tower, 2 80M dipoles mounted on crossarm at top of
tower, Yaesu G-800SDX rotor, Ameritron 5 position coax switch. So
there's one coax that goes up the tower (RG-8X for it's flexability) and
two six wire control cables. All three of these cables are bundled
together.
Here's what I've tried:
Hooking cables on each coax arm so they loop down when the tower is
lowered. Due to winds and cable twist cables became a tangled mess that
got hooked on everything.
Hooking cable only to top coax arm, modifying other coax arms to have
large loops to contain cable, and letting excess coil on ground when
tower not in use. Works great, except tower has been lowered from CQWW
in October until just this weekend when I was goin to raise up the tower
in preperation for ARRL SSB. When I went to raise the tower and I did
all my checks, I noticed that the control cable for the switch box was
broken at the inline connector (the control box has a pigtail on it for
ease of testing etc). Also noticed that the top coax arm is bent down
about 10 degrees. Just from the weight of 20 feet of cable my stress
relief loop has pulled through, and the wieght of th cables bent th coax
arm.
Here's my question. WHAT WORKS! I'm almost ready to take this huge
piece of scrap metal and throw it away, write it off on my taxes as a
loss, and put up a guyed tower (I know I know, don't start).
In all seriousness, the tower is here to stay (parental restrictions on
a guyed tower) so how do I make it work for me. Thanks!
--
Al, KE1FO, ex. KE6BER mailto:ke1fo@contesting.com or ke6ber@tiac.net
Check out my web page, http://www.tiac.net/users/ke6ber for summaries
from the contest reflector and a growing list of amateur radio links.
--
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