[TowerTalk] Projected area of Hy-Gain beams

[Stan Griffiths]

>
>Does anyone seriously believe they can overload a crank-up 
>tower and protect it with a wind-direction controlled rotor?
>
>I  HOPE   NOT  !
>
>Don't  tell  your insurance  agent  that  you  were counting 
>on the automated rotor to minimize the wind  load in time.
>
>The wind can change directions in a hurry.
>It takes 15 to 20 seconds to rotate 90 degrees, 
>after the command is issued.
>
>de  Tom   N4KG  ( in  the  tornado  alley  of  north  Alabama )

Tom's right on this one.  It's a bad idea.  I have visions of one of the
neighbor's little kids standing inside your crankup tower as it
automatically comes down . . .   Also, unless you have a positive pull-down
feature on your tower, it does not take much wind to make it "hang up" due
to side pressure.  And when the wind lets up, it takes up the slack cable in
a hurry and it may come down fast and permanently.  This has actually
happened to crankup owners who were right there hand cranking thier towers
down in a breeze.  They just kept cranking and letting out cable, not
realizing the tower was not coming down . . . until too late . . .

If you have any kind of automatic tower lowering feature, it means when the
tower is up, it must rest its full weight on the cable.  You can't have any
kind of blocks between sections to releive cable tension.  I just don't like
it, but then you know me and crankups.  I hate all of 'em . . .

Stan  w7ni@teleport.com


--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/towertalkfaq.html
Submissions:              towertalk@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-towertalk@contesting.com
Search:                   http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search.htm