[TowerTalk] Hand cranking the MA770

[N6CW@aol.com]

I put up a MA770 tower about a year and a half ago. I have a Cushcraft X7, a 
Cushcraft 40 meter rotatable dipole and a 2 meter J pole installed on it. I 
estimate the total weight of the antennas and the coax to be in the 100-120 
pound range. Currently I am hand cranking this thing up and down and it 
cranks fairly easily up until about 45 feet and then it gets real difficult 
to crank. Part of the problem is that I am standing on a 6 foot ladder to 
reach the crank which cuts down on my leverage. And probably part of the 
problem is that I am not as young as I used to be. It takes two or three 
trips up the ladder, with lots of resting in between, to get it from 45 to 60 
feet or so, a half a turn at a time. The higher it goes the harder it is to 
crank. At 60 feet I usually give up as it seems like something might break.

What I am wondering is if others of you with a MA770 notice the same problem? 
When I cranked it up the first time without antennas it went up pretty easy. 
A whole lot of cranking but not especially difficult. I suspect there is some 
possible alignment problem with a slight offset from antenna centering but it 
is not noticeable by looking up the tower. All the pulleys that I can see are 
turning properly. I am planning to motorize it in the near future but I don't 
want to force it up with a motor if there is a problem. But I don't want to 
take the whole thing down and take it apart if this is a normal operation. 

So, do I have a problem with this or is it a normal operation?

Terry/N6CW

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