[TowerTalk] Re-Cabling a US Tower HDX555

[Mark Hammond]

Hello Steve and all that responded:                             

 

Mine is real damage to the wire rope. Where I live in Utah, we periodically get very high winds coming off the eastern mountains (110 MPH Plus). We lose trees, roofs, buildings, freeway signs, and even rail road cars and semi-trucks will turn over. Most times the weather forecasters give their high wind warnings early enough that I can retract the tower before the winds get bad. However, sometimes the wind speeds are more than the forecasters anticipated and that’s when the trouble begins. 

 

I have an MD75 Motor Drive Unit that I use to raise and lower the tower. When I need to lower the tower after the high winds have started, I try to time the lowering process in between the wind gusts. Sometimes, when slowly lowering the tower between gusts, a wind gust will suddenly hit the tower and the sections will momentarily stop going down.  The MD75 does not instantly stop letting out cable when I hit the ON/Off Switch. So, when the gust lessens, the tower sections will drop until the slack in the cable is taken up. They will only drop a few inches, but that is enough to flatten the cable where it is starting to roll onto the winch. So, this year, I decided that it was time to replace the cables and remove the flat spots. I ordered the cables directly from US Tower for the HDX555. I have a SteppIR DB18E and an M2 2800 winch at the top of the tower.

 

I bought the tower with the hand winch. But later on, decided to go with a motor Drive Unit. I wanted the MDP750 because of the Positive Pull-Down feature, but was told by US Tower that the MDP750 cold not be installed in the field; hence the MD75.

 

Another question is should I replace the pulley’s also? The pulleys look fine, but I’m not sure about the bearings.

 

Thanks,

 

Mark, K7HPH

 

 

From: k7lxc at aol.com <k7lxc at aol.com> 
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2019 3:25 PM
To: towertalk at contesting.com; k7hph at q.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Re-Cabling a US Tower HDX555

 

>  I am planning to re-cable my US Tower HDX555 tower this year.  Does anyone

in the group have any suggestions or "Do's and Don't's" that would help me?

I already have the cables that I bought from US Tower.

 

    Just curious. What's the compelling reason for changing out the cables? I've worked on dozens of crank-ups over the years and I've only seen one where the cables were bad enough that they needed to be replaced.

 

    The 3 reasons for doing it are real rust, real damage to the wire rope or excessive broken strands. Which ones apply to your tower?

 

Cheers,

Steve     K7LXC  

TOWER TECH