Yo,
Several years ago I left my US-Tower 589 fully extended so as to work
KH6 on 2M. A thunder cell touched down or a tornado or some nasty wind
folded over the middle section.
I called US Towers and they said officially that the tower should be
scrapped due to the stresses on the other parts of the tower sections,
micro-fractures of welds, etc. etc.
After acknowledging that simply replacing the broken middle section of the
tower would be a travesty, I asked them to ship me an intact middle
section, which they did.
I ran the tower out horizontally, replaced the section and re-strung the
tower. It has been up ever since successfully although the last time I
retracted it and then elevated it it was acting like a pully had broken or
was trying to seize.
I don't know the MA-850MDP well enough to guess if it can be
resuscitated or not.
Always keep in mind that crank-up towers are extremely dangerous and
will try to take off an extremity or your life at any time. Steve's advice
to lube the things regularly is important to do.
I like the guyed towers you can scamper up and down better, but you
have to use what is best for the situation at hand.
73 and I remain,
Lew W7EW/W7AT
On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 11:43 AM, <K7LXC@aol.com> wrote:
> > I just had a "us tower" ma-850mdp rope rust-out and break. The tower
> telescoped straight down. I'll be getting a crane to bring it down. My
> question is what's the chance of it being damaged. 20%...30%...so forth
> and what
> would be damged....
>
> Bummer, Dude! The only way you're going to know is to try to extend it
> once it's horizontal. You may need some heavy duty chain-hoist type
> pullers to get it apart. The fatal things might be the cable attachment
> pulleys.
> I'm betting you and a clever welder/machine shop can help you get it
> working again.
>
> Cheers & GL!
> TOWER TECH
> PS - How old was the tower? Had the cables ever been lubricated? (Next
> time use PreLube on the cables annually and avoid this problem.) Do you
> live
> in a hostile cable environment (salt water, air pollution, etc.)?
>
>
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