[TowerTalk] TIC RINGS

[David Robbins K1TTT]

NOTHING is 100% reliable... the best we can hope for is that things don't
fail too often in normal use.  Personally I maintain 5 TIC rings of various
vintages on 4 different towers and the only time that I have had a coax
ripped apart was because it got caught on a protrusion I must have missed,
or thought it could never get into, when I was installing the loop... but it
wasn't the ring's fault.  I did have to replace indicator pots on 2 of the
older 1022's, but none yet on the newer ones... my oldest one, a 1032
actually does have limit switches, it is one of the old gear tooth counting
digital controllers.  The limit switches are nice, but can be messed up by
ice, they can freeze open requiring a jumper in the shack to get the antenna
to turn off the stop.  And no, they won't turn when loaded with ice, but
then again neither will the regular rotors, and when things are that bad the
antennas don't work right anyway so we just make the best of what we have
and enjoy what we can do in the contests.


David Robbins K1TTT
e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
web: http://www.k1ttt.net
AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:towertalk-
> bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Dennis OConnor
> Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 12:38
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: [TowerTalk] TIC RINGS
> 
> Tim, I am going to play the devils advocate here...
> 
> How many of those TIC Rings do you maintain yourself?  I assume it is your
> volunteers who mainly climb the towers and do repairs when things fail
> (nothing wrong with having help).. It is easy to have a favorable opinion
> when things are always working when the boss comes around...  You are less
> likely to feel favorably disposed when that rotor has failed (again) and
> you are the one climbing the tower in 20 degrees and blowing sleet to
> change out the drive motor and hope to hell you can repair the ripped off
> balun without having to make a second climb...
> 
> The thing that bothers me is not that position control has been found to
> be a problem with the rings - you never know until you put a product into
> service... The problem I have is that after more than a decade there has
> not been a redesign of the positioning system to make it 100% reliable...
> 
> 
> 
> denny / k8do
> 
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