[TowerTalk] US Tower TB-2US bearing

[R. B. Vallio]

I have a tower built by another manufacturer, and I ordered the thrust
bearing to go with it.  The collar is constructed exactly as you described
below.  Having faith in the manufacturer, I installed a 20 foot, 2 inch
diameter, quarter inch wall, steel tubing mast in the tower.  On that I hung
three long-boom KLM monoband yagis for 20, 15, and 10, and a rotary dipole
for 40.  There's also a PacketCluster node dual-band antenna on the top, and
lots of coax included as dead weight.

The bearing collar has held all of that through everything mother nature has
been able to throw at it.  I believe that is the standard for collars that
are designed to fit the mast snugly.  It's too bad that you received no
reply to your correspondence, and I'm certainly no engineer, but I don't
think you were sent a "useless" bearing  by the manufacturer, just because
you're in the Philippines.

Good luck with your alternate thrust bearing.

73, Bob


-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Kresge <du3nxe@mozcom.com>
To: towertalk@contesting.com <towertalk@contesting.com>
Date: Sunday, June 04, 2000 9:17 PM
Subject: [TowerTalk] US Tower TB-2US bearing


>
>Has anyone purchased and installed a TB-2US thrust bearing from US Tower?
If
>so, I would like to know the configuration of the bearing collar that
>attaches to the mast that you received.
>
>I recently received a TX-455 55 foot crankup tower with a TB-2US bearing
>installed. The collar was attached at the top of the tower with a metal
>strap. An Allen wrench was also attached. The collar had ONE 5/16" Allen
set
>screw installed. 90 degrees from the screw was a hole approximately 17/64"
>size drilled into the collar about 1/4", which is about halfway through the
>collar.
>
>Unless the laws of physics have been modified, that single 5/16" set screw
>is not going to be adequate to support the weight of my 15 foot mast and
>WARC-7 yagi and EF-140S 40 meter rotatable dipole! It appeared that the
>collar had been incompletely machined and it was intended the collar have 4
>set screws installed.
>
>Numerous email messages to US Tower explaining my problem with the bearing
>collar have gone unanswered. I suspect they figured my tower was the place
>to unload this useless bearing since it was going to be shipped to the
>Philippines where the recipient might not be astute enough to realize he
>received a faulty bearing.
>
>Very discouraging. But fortunately for me I have a spare YAESU GS-065
thrust
>bearing which I will install in place of the TB-2US bearing. After two more
>weeks the cement of my foundation will be cured and I will raise the tower.
>I hope it does not have any defects like the thrust bearing.
>
>Chuck Kresge-DU3NXE du3nxe@mozcom.com
>
>
>
>
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>


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