my peet wx station has a built in relay for wind alarm....
which I have yet to connect to my "down" tower switch setting.....
usually the tower is low,.,,,, but not down
as far as potential damage ,,,since i'm on a hill that sees 60- 70 mph,,,
auto down at 40mph is looking very gud before winter sets in.
bill/3 on a hill
At 11:22 PM 7/24/2012, K0DAN wrote:
>Hi Bill...
>
>I doubt there is anything commercially made, due to liability and
>supply/demand issues, but I have contemplated this project before (and never
>took action on it).
>
>OK, so I have an LM470 for which I built a remote control box from the tower
>to the shack (about 130', using twisted pair and relays). I don't motor it
>up/down as much as I thought I would, and more times than not I just go out
>to the tower to "be there" when changing things. I have installed a remote
>audio amp so I can listen to the tower sounds in the shack, and am thinking
>about remote CCTV/audio, which I do if I ever clear my plate of projects.
>
>So back to the wind velocity issue....I have block diagrammed a homebrew
>anemometer which trips a logic circuit if, say, wind velocity exceed 40 mph,
>lowers tower and you hope that limit switches on tower shut things off when
>it gets nested. I have also thought about using a Davis Weather Station
>(which I own) which has serial output at the control box to trigger some
>software/logic circuit to activate tower motor upon some wind speed.
>
>I have never done this because:
>a) too complex and too prone to unexpected events
>b) never needed it that much (if I leave for vacation or in anticipation of
>bad WX I just manually lower the tower)
>c) Safety:
>1. What azimuth do you want the antennas pointed when the tower is lowered?
>2. What happens if a hoist or coax cable snags or branch gets hooked during
>automatic lowering?
>3. What happens if neighbors/children around during robotic operation?
>4. Unanticipated failsafe conditions?
>5. What is potential liability for damages resulting from unattended or
>unsupervised operation?
>
>Some of these worries might be mitigated by remote voice/video over IP
>supervision, but still gets kind of complex, still needs power, backup
>power, redundancy, supervisory control. This is why I abandoned the project
>and just lower the tower when I'm away, and occasionally remote it from the
>shack.
>
>Hope you find a concept/solution that meets your needs!
>
>73
>
>Dan
>K0DAN
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Bill Gaines
>Sent: July 24, 2012 08:28 PM
>To: towertalk@contesting.com
>Subject: [TowerTalk] Automatic Tower Lowering Device
>
>Is there a manufactured device out there that when attached to the control
>box of my LM470 tower it will automatically lower my tower if the wind speed
>reaches a pre-set velocity?
>
>Thank you
>Bill AD8P
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