[TowerTalk] Motorized Crank Up Towers

[Don Tucker]

A little late comment Steve, but you make a very good point.  My HG-70HD came with the motor control option but I never bothered to install it. And, glad I did not. Last spring, after all the winter winds, I decided to hand crank it back up to full height (it was at 2/3).  Did NOT notice that  a section of the top drooping cable had evidently been blown hard enough to hang up over the top coax arm.  Noticed the cranking was suddenly a little hard, looked up and my coax arm was bent down at almost 45 degrees. Necessitated cranking it back down all the way, climbing up and replacing the coax arm. Hate to think what might have happened if I'd had the motor attached and raised it from inside the shack. Lesson learned -  always do a close inspection of the tower if its been cranked down awhile.

Don W7WLL


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: K7LXC at aol.com 
  To: towertalk at contesting.com ; w7wll at arrl.net 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 10:18 AM
  Subject: Re: TowerTalk Digest, Vol 89, Issue 8


  In a message dated 5/3/2010 12:01:23 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, towertalk-request at contesting.com writes:
    >  As to tower cables failing, in my 54 years of hamming, I have never heard 
    first hand from anyone that has had cable failure although I am sure this 
    has occurred, certainly there are enough stories floating around. I have to 
    imagine that the majority of cases was because of poor maintenance 
    procedures, pushing a reasonable replacement time limit, or undersized or 
    poor quality cable or improper eye swaging.

        Actually the 2 I've seen were none of the above. Both cable failures were due to another external cable (coax, etc.) snagging on something on the way up and unnoticed by the owner as the tower was moving. BIG noise as the main haul cable snapped and everything collapsed into the tower bending antenna booms and creating a bit of a problem repair-wise. 

        This is why I discourage using any kind of remote tower control and strongly recommend you be at the tower watching everything whenever it's moving. 

    Cheers,
    Steve   K7LXC
    TOWER TECH