> - Cables last changed by a UST tech in 2010
Which begs the question who did it and what did it cost?
> - during 2014/2015 winter (~Dec 2014) cable at base of tower jumped the
pulley (I guess due to ice) when I was lowering the tower. So, cable was
riding on the Pulley axle until I could lower it to get at the cable/Spring
end. Used several cans of pre-lube during this lowering process. Once down,
I was able to Stop-off the cable and release the spring tension to get the
cable back onto the pulley. Checked for broken strands, and only found one
surface strand broken in the 8-10 ft of cable that underwent the sharp
bend. Otherwise, cables look good and tower works all OK.
. . . thus my concern, at least about the lower cable.
> Comments?
Industry standards are typically for wire rope in a working
environment where it might go thru dozens or hundreds of cycles a day. Normal
ham use
is so intermittent that the cables don't get to work much, thus my
recommendation to exercise a crank-up occasionally so that it actually does
some
work.
Your damaged spot was probably relatively small so it probably wasn't
fatal even in the long term. I'm not going to discourage doing PM like this
but sometimes it's more psychological help.
Cheers,
Steve K7LXC
TOWER TECH
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