It has been a few years since I purchase cable clamps, at the time one
company sent me zinc plated ones so I re-purchased them at another
tower supply company and got galvanized ones. McMaster-Carr still
lists galvanized ones on their site. I use turnbuckles with a much
higher rating than my Phillystran so it is not the weak link in the
system. Safety wires are just to prevent unscrewing, you do not see
them on shackles or other parts of the guy system. I concur with K8LX
that unscrewing from vibration is very unlikely with the rough
galvanized threads under hundreds to over a thousand pounds of tension
for ham towers. I need a tools to unscrew mine, especially after they
have sit for a while in the weather.
John KK9A
Steve Maki wrote:
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
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|