[TowerTalk] Tower maintenance person wanted - MN

[K7LXC at aol.com]

>  - Cables last changed by a UST tech in 2010
 
    Which begs the question who did it and what  did it cost? 
 
>  - during 2014/2015 winter (~Dec 2014) cable at base of  tower jumped the 
pulley (I guess due to ice) when I was lowering the tower. So,  cable was 
riding on the Pulley axle until I could lower it to get at the  cable/Spring 
end. Used several cans of pre-lube during this lowering process.  Once down, 
I was able to Stop-off the cable and release the spring tension to  get the 
cable back onto the pulley. Checked for broken strands, and only found  one 
surface strand broken in the 8-10 ft of cable that underwent the sharp 
bend.  Otherwise, cables look good and tower works all OK.  
. . . thus my  concern, at least about the lower cable.
 
>  Comments?
 
    Industry standards are typically for wire rope in a  working 
environment where it might go thru dozens or hundreds of cycles a day.  Normal ham use 
is so intermittent that the cables don't get to work much, thus  my 
recommendation to exercise a crank-up occasionally so that it actually does  some 
work. 
 
    Your damaged spot was probably relatively small so  it probably wasn't 
fatal even in the long term. I'm not going to discourage  doing PM like this 
but sometimes it's more psychological help.
 
Cheers,
Steve    K7LXC
TOWER TECH