Every Spring and Fall I inspect my towers and antennas thoroughly so that
I can plan needed corrective work during the rest of the year.
With high winds expected tomorrow and a beautiful warm sunny day today, I
decided to begin my ritual inspection of my guy anchors, including guy
wires, guy tension, turnbuckles and fasteners. Imagine my shock when I
got to one of the guy anchors, and the guy wire was not there! This was
one of my very few guy anchors that does not use a turnbuckle, this anchor
rod has a "fist" style termination commonly used by utility companies.
The "missing" guy was hanging down the tower, with the end on the ground
near the tower base. This is a 1/4" EHS guy and all seven strands were
fractured where they had passed thru the guy anchor, the three Crosby
clips were still in place. The guy has now been repaired and re-attached.
I have no idea why the EHS cable snapped where it passed thru the
"fist"... This is the first time I've experienced a failure of a guy
cable.
Additional inspections planned this spring:
Each tower base will be examined for evidence of rust or other
deterioration and all accumulated dirt or other winter debris will be
completely removed.
Tower plumb will be checked from top to bottom with a transit and
corrected by retensioning the guys if necessary.
All tower ground wires and ground rods will be inspected.
All RF and control cables fastened to sides of the tower will be inspected
and fasteners replaced if there is any evidence of deterioriation.
Electrical connections to rotors and antennas will be inspected.
All tower bolts and nuts will be visually inspected for tightness.
This twice a year inspection routine has served me well over many
years. I highly recommend that all tower owners follow a similar policy.
73
Frank
W3LPL
donovanf@sgate.com
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