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Re: [TowerTalk] Fwd: Lightning Damage, Crane used to replace Orion Posi

To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Fwd: Lightning Damage, Crane used to replace Orion Positioner
From: "Chester Alderman" <aldermant@windstream.net>
Date: Sat, 14 May 2016 18:50:17 -0400
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Nope!! In rural south Georgia they told me I did not need a permit to put a 
tower on my 15 acre property! I asked for a written statement of that fact and 
got it gratis!

Tom - W4BQF


-----Original Message-----
From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Hans 
Hammarquist via TowerTalk
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2016 4:40 PM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Fwd: Lightning Damage, Crane used to replace Orion 
Positioner

Thank L-d I live in a rural town that hasn't figure out how to suck money from 
a radio ham (yet). My building permit to get the tower cost me $15 everything 
included. Jealous?




-----Original Message-----
From: W5GN <w5gn@mxg.com>
To: 'towertalk' <towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Sat, May 14, 2016 12:20 pm
Subject: [TowerTalk] Lightning Damage, Crane used to replace Orion Positioner

About two weeks ago, we had an extremely close lightning strike that surged our 
AC voltage to about 6000V (estimate based on ¼ inch 

between the two arc burns on the shell of the plastic AC plug to the chassis 
screw on the Orion 2800 Control Box), even though 

all circuits have commercial surge protectors that were installed when the 
office/radio wing was built in 1984.

But I did NOT have a UPS between the wall and the radio equipment; none of the 
computer equipment in the other corner that is

behind a UPS was not touched by this surge.

 

The surge took out that Orion 2800 rotor control box, and the motor windings in 
the positioner was now an open circuit.

 

The surge also took out the Astron 30 Amp supply, and its 12V output surge took 
out the transmit side of the ICOM 756PROII.

 

I sent it to Icom repair in St. Joseph, MI, on a Tuesday, and they had finished 
the repairs and were ready to ship on Tuesday

when I called them on this past Monday, and it arrived yesterday, Friday.
$192 - $140 Service, $23 for parts.

They replaced the defective IC151 and D131 in RF unit, and the CI-V remote port 
that I didn’t know was burned,

and replaced Q5771 Q25, D22, D23, clock battery BT3501 and, unrelated to the 
surge damage, replaced R1 on the phone

board which had failed a while back and caused loss of one audio channel.

 

That 12V surge also took out the 20 meter position of the Array Solutions Six 
Pack, and the MicroKeyer II.

 

The UST HDBX-72 tower is normally nearly retracted, with the top of the tower 
at 32 feet, with the Cal AV 2-el Forty there,

and the OB16-3 18 feet higher.  My first tower climber volunteer observed the 
first problem.  The tower needed

to be raised about 10 feet to get the positioner clear of the next lower tower 
section so it could be removed.

But the electrical control has not worked for some time, and since I had not 
intended to raise the tower,

and since I added the complexity of the (useless IMO) Remote Control, we gave 
up on fixing that problem,

and instead used a screw driver as a lever and rotated the drive shaft to raise 
the tower the 10 feet,

alternating two of us for about 20 minutes.

 

My professional climber could have replaced the Positioner in the tower in 
harness on the tower, but since

the LMR400ULTRAFLEX was now 13 years old, I elected to bring a crane so they 
could be replaced, and because

it’s a lot easier on the climber!

 

In 2003, we had a 160 ton crane (pics at www.mxg.com <http://www.mxg.com> , 
lower left) because we had the old EzWAY Tower further back that

had to be removed first; that day’s crane cost was $700.

 

When I called Davis Crane, I found that a city permit to close the street would 
be required, two Dallas (off-duty)

policeman that we would pay $240 each for were required, that the crane could 
not be here on Friday, our garbage pickup day,

per city rules, and because our normal residential street once had a bus line, 
it was classified somehow higher as

needing to be clear by 3:30 for “rush hour”.  He also said the crane would 
leave around 8am, about a half hour away,

and it would take an hour to setup, and also it would take nearly an hour to 
shut down and be gone by 3:30.

And I had to deliver 42 “Notice of Street Closure” to the folks who lived on 
the two streets and backed up to the

alley exit that would be closed that day, record their addresses and deliver 
back to Davis to get the permit.

 

 

The city had put out the Detour Signs on Wednesday, by the curb.  

 

I had ordered 2x LMR400UF, Rotor, and RG8X Pulse cables in 200 foot lengths 
from Joel, at RFConnection.

When the LMR400UF arrived, I decided to confirm its length by weighing on the 
shipping scale, 

and found the weight of the LMR400UF was .068 Pounds/Foot, so 200 feet should 
be 13.6 pounds,

but the scale displayed only 7.7, so there must be only 100 feet of coax.
Only after wasting Joel’s time,

for him to confirm the actual shipping weight was 38 pounds, did I apologize 
for the egg on

my face, as my scale was displaying KiloGrams, not pounds.  Wednesday afternoon 
we removed the old cables

from the shack to the base of the tower, made up the new cables, and ran them 
from the shack also to

the base of the tower.

 

Thursday the crane and officer arrived about the same time, a little before 9, 
and the officer pulled the 

detour signs to block both lanes, and then sat in his surburban pretty much the 
rest of the day.

The crane arrived, and we then waited nearly an hour while they called back to 
get the man basket that had been 

ordered but not put on the order form.  Then we waited another 45 minutes for 
their mechanic to arrive to

find the short in the winch’s terminal block that was water-exposed and 
intermittent.

 

Work proceeded smoothly for the coax removal for the OB16-3 which is now at
60 feet on the 24 foot mast and

then the Cal-AV 2el 40 is at 42 feet. 

Work was somewhat slower when it came to raising the mast so the positioner 
could be slipped out;

previously, you could get two winches, so one can hold the basket while the 
second is used to 

raise mast those couple of inches needed, but OSHA rules now prohibit two 
winches, so the crane had to 

swap the basket with a strap to lift, while the climber clipped in, and then go 
back and get the basket, 

several times.  And similarly, since both antenna’s feed point is some distance 
from the mast, and 

with those 16 elements on top, only about 2 feet apart, the crane operator took 
lots of time to reposition 

out and then back in without taking off elements to move along the boom with 
the coax.

 

Around 1pm, a city of Dallas inspector showed up and halted work because the 
permit required two policeman, 

which I had expected and was on the order also, but only one had been ordered, 
apparently, by Davis Crane, 

maybe, but this was a Keystone Cop discussion between the Davis guy, the cop, 
and the (REALLY NASTY) inspector,

who finally relented, saying, well I’m not stopping your work now, got in his 
vehicle and drove away.  

Earlier he had told me that the reason the policemen were there was NOT for 
traffic control, the signs did that.  

They were there in case the crane tipped over so they could call for help!.

 

So both the cop and the Davis guy were worried about him coming back and giving 
us grief over that 3:30 limit,

and there can be serious fines involved, so my tower guy got 5 minute warnings 
for the last half hour,

and connected the last critical wire at 3:32.  The crane shutdown took only
10 minutes, and he moved the crane

so it was now parked and only blocking one lane, and then sat there 45 minutes, 
waiting for the electrican to

return to now repair the crane storage mechanism – the crane was completely 
collapsed, but that whole unit

was stuck about 3 feet above it’s cradle.

 

So that lost time really hurt; it still took three more hours on Friday for him 
to climb and strap in and 

finish building and sealing the Bud box with the terminal block for the 
positioner, tie wrapping and taping

the cable bundles, and finishing those details.

 

I had purchased the new Orion 2800 positioner only, because last year, for the 
first time, I actually

won something of value at the Contest Dinner, when I got a Green Heron 
controller.  When we went to

setup that box, we made some stupid error, but were very pleased when Jeff 
answered his phone and

he walked us thru to correct our error.  Just love that knob to point the beams.

 

The cost of this crane was $2440.

 

73

 

Barry, W5GN

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