[TowerTalk] TX-455 and Ice

[Bill Gillenwater]

My experience is that if you have an ice storm and the tower is up or down, 
leave it where it is until the ice melts. If you try moving the tower and 
there is ice on the cables, you risk having the whole thing come crashing 
down. I have seen ice coated cables slide through pulleys like butter. 
Whenever I expected ice, I left the tower down, if it was up and had an 
unexpected ice accum. overnight for example, I left it up.
73 Bill

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Walters" <K4IKM at ptd.net>
To: <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 11:13 AM
Subject: [TowerTalk] TX-455 and Ice


> Hi Guys!
>
> I'm a new TX-455 tower owner, it's sitting on the footing waiting for the 
> 28 day concrete cure to be finished.
>
> Just recently, U S Tower updated their website and in the Ham products 
> section have placed a note saying that their towers (including the ever 
> popular TX-455) are not rated for ice and that these towers must be fully 
> retracted during ice storms.
>
> I realize that the weight of the tower greatly increases with a thick 
> coating of ice so the cable holding it up a seeing a far far greater load 
> than normal. When I bought the tower, I had assumed this was engineered 
> into the design but now it seems not. Here in the Poconos of PA, we have 
> lots of nasty ice storms so this means I am perpetually going to put this 
> tower up and down. I guess I can do this but it wasn't in my plans and I 
> am going to want to motorize this puppy in some fashion if I have to do it 
> often.
>
> So (finally) my question: Are there any instances of TX-455 failure due to 
> ice loading? Any other comments on this issue are most welcome.
>
> 73 and good DX!
>
> Steve...
>
> K4IKM at ptd.net
>
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