[TowerTalk] US Tower damaged by lightning

[Randy]

I don't mean to cast aspersions, since I have no personal knowledge of 
this, but I've been told that
UST won't even sell or give copies of how to rig the cables, allegedly 
due to liability issues. I do
know that I happily photographed the way a UST TX472 was rigged, and 
emailed them to a gent
in 4X4 land, I forget his name/call, but he had purchased one w/o the 
cables, and could not get
any info from UST, according to him. This is not the only time this 
rumor has come up. I only
mention this in support of the "potential liability" issue posted below.

As to whether or not lightning can crack concrete, that's brought up 
contentious discussions here before.
One gent did post here that he lost a tower back in the 60's due to a 
blown-up concrete guy anchor.
I've seen it damage concrete several times, but I can't say one way or 
the other re: "structural" problems
the OP had in his basement.

73,
Randy
KZ4RV

K7LXC at aol.com wrote
> Of course UST says to replace everything. It's a  potential liability 
> issue and they don't want any responsibility ("We told him  to replace 
> everything and he didn't so it's not our problem")
>  
>     Of course you should inspect the tower. You  should look at or touch 
> all of the cables and look for burned spots -  they should be relatively 
> obvious. I would think that the strike followed the  path of least resistance 
> (and skin effect) by going directly down any  conductors. Maybe the tower 
> itself acted as a sort of Faraday shield  protecting the cables inside the tower. 
>  
>     Anyway, I'd be surprised if the cables were  affected but a visual 
> inspection will tell you. 
>  
>     The problem is that the only guy I know who does  UST repairs is Skip, 
> KJ6Y, in SoCal. Replacing the cables on your  tower is not a job for the 
> inexperienced or faint of heart. If it was my  tower I'd roll the dice and just 
> go ahead and use it. In the case where a  cable does fail at some point, 
> then you do have a loss worth pursuing. You  could be candid with your 
> insurance folks and tell them they can either fix it  now or later by keeping your 
> claim open for a year or so. 
>  
> Cheers & GL,
> Steve      K7LXC
> TOWER TECH  -
> Professional tower services for hams
> UST factory authorized installer
>
>
>
>  
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