[TowerTalk] Cable break on MARB 550 US Tower

[Rod Fitz-Randolph]

>Fellow 'Towertalkians':
>
>I'm very interested in the remarks made by Rafael (below).  My HZRN-72 tower
>arrived and I will be recabling it before the installation.  If stainless
>steel cable is really better, I sure want to use it - but I seem to remember
>some remarks from one of the tower installer (or maybe it was TriEx) that
>stainless steel cable is not significantly better.
>
>Please, has this issue been resolved and I just missed it?
>
>73,
> Frank T. Brady
_____________________________________________________________________________
Frank, you'll never convince me that stainless is NOT better!!!  Let me relate
an experience that may convince you as well.

I was helping K3ARN in Melbourne, FL repair another ham's rotor on a 105'
Sky Needle.  It had a Christmas tree of 8 element monobander beams, if my
memory serves me right, for 10, 15, and 20 meters.  K3ARN and I were on the
platform at approximately 24 feet while we were repairing the HD-300 rotor by
replacing a direction sensing pot.  As we started down the tower, the owner
started to raise it.  As K3ARN was crossing the driveway to enter the owner's
hamshack and discuss the repair with him, and I was about 20 feet from the
base of the tower, the cable (not stainless) had just brought the top section
to 105 feet and then snapped.  The whole shebang telescoped with force and
stopped when it was all jammed together.  I looked back at the platform where
K3ARN and I had been standing and working a minute before, and I was amazed
at the way in which the steel platform had been deformed and crushed.

I personally examined the cable that had been sold as stainless to the owner
and found that rather it was galvanized steel cable and had rusted almost
all the way through where it had been resting underneath the bottom pulley
where all the salt and moisture and collected day after week after month.
There had only been a few strands that had not completely rusted through.

I have the picture of the incredible mess (including the collapsed antennas)
on my wall to remind me that non-stainless cable can't be trusted... at least
in the corrosive atmosphere of east Florida.  I wouldn't trust non-stainless
cable anywhere!

Now it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that, had that cable
been true stainless cable instead of galvanized steel cable, the incident
would not have happened.

Any arguments against the use of stainless cable because of some less tensile
strength is as inane as the arguments on the part of the shallow-thinkers
that have extolled the virtue of non-stainless 1/4" and 5/16" bolts used on
Rohn tower as opposed to the stainless bolts and teflon stainless lock nuts
I put on my Rohn tower after having taken down a number of Rohn 25G towers
that had the original bolts RUSTED COMPLETELY THROUGH due to the salt spray
and moisture in the Florida east coast.  Obviously, an unrusted stainless
cable or unrusted stainless bolt and locknut are to be desired over rusted
through cables or bolts that STARTED OUT as being stronger..... if in fact,m
they were!

Now I am off my soapbox and my gastritis has subsided a little and I feel
better.  My wife may even let me come back inside from the hamshack, now.

Talk to others and make your own choice.  Remember, though, that the choice
you make is one you may have to live (or die) with!

Best Regards,


Rod, N5HV
w5hvv@aeneas.net



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