Though my tower has remote control (or did until my lightning strike), I
would only lower it from inside, and I did that when I knew no cables could
get caught in the tower. It's especially prudent to control it at the tower
base for a tower with positive pull-down, which my previous Hy-Gain HG70HD
didn't have.
Even being outside watching it on the way up, I've caught a ladder line
feedline on an eave, and slopers and inverted vees can get caught too.
I was always uncomfortable with my previous tower, the Hy-Gain, because I
couldn't get it down with the manual winch if the wind was blowing too hard,
which caused it to bind.
I wouldn't buy the remote control option again.
Jim N7US
-----Original Message-----
A little late comment Steve, but you make a very good point. My HG-70HD
came with the motor control option but I never bothered to install it. And,
glad I did not. Last spring, after all the winter winds, I decided to hand
crank it back up to full height (it was at 2/3). Did NOT notice that a
section of the top drooping cable had evidently been blown hard enough to
hang up over the top coax arm. Noticed the cranking was suddenly a little
hard, looked up and my coax arm was bent down at almost 45 degrees.
Necessitated cranking it back down all the way, climbing up and replacing
the coax arm. Hate to think what might have happened if I'd had the motor
attached and raised it from inside the shack. Lesson learned - always do a
close inspection of the tower if its been cranked down awhile.
Don W7WLL
----- Original Message -----
In a message dated 5/3/2010 12:01:23 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
towertalk-request@contesting.com writes:
> As to tower cables failing, in my 54 years of hamming, I have never
heard
first hand from anyone that has had cable failure although I am sure
this
has occurred, certainly there are enough stories floating around. I have
to
imagine that the majority of cases was because of poor maintenance
procedures, pushing a reasonable replacement time limit, or undersized
or
poor quality cable or improper eye swaging.
Actually the 2 I've seen were none of the above. Both cable failures
were due to another external cable (coax, etc.) snagging on something on the
way up and unnoticed by the owner as the tower was moving. BIG noise as the
main haul cable snapped and everything collapsed into the tower bending
antenna booms and creating a bit of a problem repair-wise.
This is why I discourage using any kind of remote tower control and
strongly recommend you be at the tower watching everything whenever it's
moving.
Cheers,
Steve K7LXC
TOWER TECH
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