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Re: [TowerTalk] Opening Steel Hardwre AFter 15 Years

To: towertalk <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Opening Steel Hardwre AFter 15 Years
From: Steve Maki <lists@oakcom.org>
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2020 22:48:20 -0400
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
The purpose of the safety wire is to prevent vandals from unscrewing the turnbuckle. Some say that it's also to prevent the turnbuckle from unscrewing due to vibration - but I've never seen that tendency in turnbuckles under guy wire tension.

Properly sized turnbuckles are not the weak link in the system - it's the guy wire itself.

-Steve K8LX

On 04/14/20 22:16 PM, K9MA wrote:
I ran into the same problem when I replaced my tower last year. I used Big Grips on the guys, but wanted to use cable clamps on the safety wire through the turnbuckles, which was to be 3/16 EHS. Except for some bare iron ones, none of the clamps I could find were rated for 1X7 EHS; all were rated for 7X19, etc, with more strands.  I think the key is that the saddles have to be malleable, because it's impossible to compress 1X7 EHS. (Ever try to cut the stuff?)  I finally ended up buying some finely stranded SS cable and clamps for the safety wires. Overkill, maybe, but if a turnbuckle fails, I want the safety wire to hold the tower up.

73,
Scott K9MA



On 4/14/2020 17:05, Donald Chester wrote:
Keith Dutson kdutson at sbcglobal.net Sat Apr 4 19:28:59 EDT 2020 wrote:

Good reminder to always use hot dipped galvanized hardware.
I re-guyed my Rohn 25 a couple of years ago.  Big Grips are great for attaching insulators breaking up guy cables on my 160m vertical, but I use wire rope clamps on the chains of 3 insulators  next to the tower because with Big Grips the insulators would be spaced too far apart for my liking.

I ordered new clamps from Rohn, but the ones I received were cheap zinc plated like something from Ace Hardware, and the saddles are so poorly made that they slipped on the cable when I tested them under tension using a ratchet puller. I called the Rohn dealer and they told me they couldn't get the good hot-dipped clamps any more, since almost everyone now uses Big Grips exclusively.  I looked on line and the good hot-dipped clips from Crosby are very expensive, about $7 each (mine cost me
35¢ each in 1980).

I ended up re-using the old ones after carefully inspecting each one, and painted over them with a heavy coat of Rustoleum aluminium paint.  I used some of the crappy ones I got from Rohn for another (non-tower) project, and sure enough, the U-bolts and nuts are now heavily rusted after only two years, much more so than the original clamps I had installed nearly 40 years ago.  The re-used and painted ones on the tower guy wires still look as good as the day I installed them.  I have found that ordinary aluminium paint lasts longer before rust begins to peer through, than the "Cold-Galv" stuff.

I still have a bucket full of the crappy ones I got from Rohn. Haven't decided whether to take them to a  hamfest and sell for whatever I can get for them, or to toss them in the dumpster.  I would hate for someone else to buy them from me and have a tower fail when the cables slipped during a heavy wind- storm.  I would have returned them if I hadn't fooled around and waited more than a year before opening the box when I was ready to use them, and discovering what they sent me. I didn't bother, since I doubt
they would have accepted a return after I had waited that long.

Don k4kyv
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