[TowerTalk] Opening Steel Hardwre AFter 15 Years

[john at kk9a.com]

It has been a few years since I purchase cable clamps, at the time one  
company sent me zinc plated ones so I re-purchased them at another  
tower supply company and got galvanized ones. McMaster-Carr still  
lists galvanized ones on their site. I use turnbuckles with a much  
higher rating than my Phillystran so it is not the weak link in the  
system. Safety wires are just to prevent unscrewing, you do not see  
them on shackles or other parts of the guy system. I concur with K8LX  
that unscrewing from vibration is very unlikely with the rough  
galvanized threads under hundreds to over a thousand pounds of tension  
for ham towers. I need a tools to unscrew mine, especially after they  
have sit for a while in the weather.

John KK9A




Steve Maki wrote:

The purpose of the safety wire is to prevent vandals from unscrewing the
turnbuckle. Some say that it's also to prevent the turnbuckle from
unscrewing due to vibration - but I've never seen that tendency in
turnbuckles under guy wire tension.

Properly sized turnbuckles are not the weak link in the system - it's
the guy wire itself.

-Steve K8LX


On 04/14/20 22:16 PM, K9MA wrote:
> I ran into the same problem when I replaced my tower last year. I  
> used Big Grips on the guys, but wanted to use cable clamps on the  
> safety wire through the turnbuckles, which was to be 3/16 EHS.  
> Except for some bare iron ones, none of the clamps I could find were  
> rated for 1X7 EHS; all were rated for 7X19, etc, with more strands.   
> I think the key is that the saddles have to be malleable, because  
> it's impossible to compress 1X7 EHS. (Ever try to cut the stuff?)  I  
> finally ended up buying some finely stranded SS cable and clamps for  
> the safety wires. Overkill, maybe, but if a turnbuckle fails, I want  
> the safety wire to hold the tower up.
>
> 73,
> Scott K9MA