With some exceptions, I think everyone who owns these
beasts would like to see the company stay in business.
That desire is probably in proportion to the number of
units owned. I only own one TIC ring, so I don't have
a great deal invested compared to some others.
I think that experience with TIC rings vairies widely.
Some have put up a dozen without trouble, while others
have experienced significant trouble with a single ring
installation. I have personally been through three motors,
almost a dozen 500-ohm pots, and two or three control units.
I've had to swap out motors at least a dozen times, and
I estimate that 70% of my tower trips were TIC-ring related.
Some of the problems were not the fault of the TIC gear, but
many of them were.
It wasn't just installation issues. Folks who knew what they
were doing (W4AN & others) had some rings that worked great and
other units that were constantly problematic no matter what.
I ran an email reflector (it's been inactive lately) for TIC-ring
owners, and I know something of other's experiences with these
units.
There HAVE been some real problems in QA/QC at times. I have
personally had to junk two TIC control units, both of which
rarely worked 100% OK. I'm convinced now that the last TIC
controller I used was burning up pots like wildfire. I have
had different size gears in replacement cause very confusing
problems, etc. I've shipped controllers and motors to-and-from
TIC more times than I can remember. Carl is courteous and tries
to get things right, but it costs every time. I finally broke
down and bought a Green Heron controller at Dayton this year,
and I have not had to climb my tower since.
The ring itself and motor assemblys are very sound. If you can
get a working controller unit (I recommend Green Heron) and you
can keep the pots from burning up, the TIC can be a great
solution. But caveat emptor! As one poster put it years ago
"these things are not Heathkit." The ring mount and bearing
mechanism are still working fine after 8 years in the air.
If you own a TIC ring and would like to join the TIC owners
reflector, feel free to drop me a line.
73
-Kirk K4RO
On Wed, Nov 08, 2006 at 12:14:31AM -0500, Tyler Stewart wrote:
> My experience is much the same as yours with 1022's at least. I'm using
> two of them that I'm constantly replacing pots in motors, adding more MOVs,
> etc., and I froze up one of the motor gearboxes. I've got spare stuff, so
> I just keep swaping and fixing the spares.
>
> Ty K3MM
>
>
> Subject: [TowerTalk] TIC 1122 Fixed
> From: Dennis OConnor <ad4hk2004@yahoo.com>
> Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 05:22:55 -0800 (PST)
>
> I have given up on TIC rotors... The last one remaining up on my towers has
> <once again> had a disparity between pot position and rotor position and
> ripped the matching harness off the beam while a guest operator <who is not
> responsible> did not notice the disparity between the beam position versus
> the indicator needle like I would have...This time the coax whipped free,
> wrapped around an element and bent it, costing me money... I am sick and
> tired of climbing to 120 feet and hanging upside down whilst I change out
> the drive motor and then repair the beam... Never again... The rotor is
> coming down, the pot will be changed out and tested, and the unit put on
> ebay...
>
> denny / k8do
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