Davis did subtract the time lost due to the winch issue,
and the first electrical issue, and for the time the City
Inspector delay us, and stopped charges at 3:30, dropping
the drive home charge.
And they apologized for the state of the crane.
Had my guy not been willing/able to finish the work without
the crane, I and my lawyer would ensure they came back
with one for free for those lost hours.
73
Barry, W5GN
-----Original Message-----
From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Kevin
Stover
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2016 4:18 PM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Lightning Damage, Crane used to replace Orion
Positioner
I'd have presented the crane company with a bill for having to wait while
their electrician fixed the crane before it started the job and during. The
rig never should have left the yard in that state much less have you pay for
the time involved fixing it.
On 5/14/2016 11:13 AM, W5GN wrote:
> About two weeks ago, we had an extremely close lightning strike that
> surged our AC voltage to about 6000V (estimate based on ¼ inch
>
> between the two arc burns on the shell of the plastic AC plug to the
> chassis screw on the Orion 2800 Control Box), even though
>
> all circuits have commercial surge protectors that were installed when
> the office/radio wing was built in 1984.
>
> But I did NOT have a UPS between the wall and the radio equipment;
> none of the computer equipment in the other corner that is
>
> behind a UPS was not touched by this surge.
>
>
>
> The surge took out that Orion 2800 rotor control box, and the motor
> windings in the positioner was now an open circuit.
>
>
>
> The surge also took out the Astron 30 Amp supply, and its 12V output
> surge took out the transmit side of the ICOM 756PROII.
>
>
>
> I sent it to Icom repair in St. Joseph, MI, on a Tuesday, and they had
> finished the repairs and were ready to ship on Tuesday
>
> when I called them on this past Monday, and it arrived yesterday, Friday.
> $192 - $140 Service, $23 for parts.
>
> They replaced the defective IC151 and D131 in RF unit, and the CI-V
> remote port that I didn?t know was burned,
>
> and replaced Q5771 Q25, D22, D23, clock battery BT3501 and, unrelated
> to the surge damage, replaced R1 on the phone
>
> board which had failed a while back and caused loss of one audio channel.
>
>
>
> That 12V surge also took out the 20 meter position of the Array
> Solutions Six Pack, and the MicroKeyer II.
>
>
>
> The UST HDBX-72 tower is normally nearly retracted, with the top of
> the tower at 32 feet, with the Cal AV 2-el Forty there,
>
> and the OB16-3 18 feet higher. My first tower climber volunteer
> observed the first problem. The tower needed
>
> to be raised about 10 feet to get the positioner clear of the next
> lower tower section so it could be removed.
>
> But the electrical control has not worked for some time, and since I
> had not intended to raise the tower,
>
> and since I added the complexity of the (useless IMO) Remote Control,
> we gave up on fixing that problem,
>
> and instead used a screw driver as a lever and rotated the drive shaft
> to raise the tower the 10 feet,
>
> alternating two of us for about 20 minutes.
>
>
>
> My professional climber could have replaced the Positioner in the
> tower in harness on the tower, but since
>
> the LMR400ULTRAFLEX was now 13 years old, I elected to bring a crane
> so they could be replaced, and because
>
> it?s a lot easier on the climber!
>
>
>
> In 2003, we had a 160 ton crane (pics at www.mxg.com
> <http://www.mxg.com> , lower left) because we had the old EzWAY Tower
> further back that
>
> had to be removed first; that day?s crane cost was $700.
>
>
>
> When I called Davis Crane, I found that a city permit to close the
> street would be required, two Dallas (off-duty)
>
> policeman that we would pay $240 each for were required, that the
> crane could not be here on Friday, our garbage pickup day,
>
> per city rules, and because our normal residential street once had a
> bus line, it was classified somehow higher as
>
> needing to be clear by 3:30 for ?rush hour?. He also said the crane
> would leave around 8am, about a half hour away,
>
> and it would take an hour to setup, and also it would take nearly an
> hour to shut down and be gone by 3:30.
>
> And I had to deliver 42 ?Notice of Street Closure? to the folks who
> lived on the two streets and backed up to the
>
> alley exit that would be closed that day, record their addresses and
> deliver back to Davis to get the permit.
>
>
>
>
>
> The city had put out the Detour Signs on Wednesday, by the curb.
>
>
>
> I had ordered 2x LMR400UF, Rotor, and RG8X Pulse cables in 200 foot
> lengths from Joel, at RFConnection.
>
> When the LMR400UF arrived, I decided to confirm its length by weighing
> on the shipping scale,
>
> and found the weight of the LMR400UF was .068 Pounds/Foot, so 200 feet
> should be 13.6 pounds,
>
> but the scale displayed only 7.7, so there must be only 100 feet of coax.
> Only after wasting Joel?s time,
>
> for him to confirm the actual shipping weight was 38 pounds, did I
> apologize for the egg on
>
> my face, as my scale was displaying KiloGrams, not pounds. Wednesday
> afternoon we removed the old cables
>
> from the shack to the base of the tower, made up the new cables, and
> ran them from the shack also to
>
> the base of the tower.
>
>
>
> Thursday the crane and officer arrived about the same time, a little
> before 9, and the officer pulled the
>
> detour signs to block both lanes, and then sat in his surburban pretty
> much the rest of the day.
>
> The crane arrived, and we then waited nearly an hour while they called
> back to get the man basket that had been
>
> ordered but not put on the order form. Then we waited another 45
> minutes for their mechanic to arrive to
>
> find the short in the winch?s terminal block that was water-exposed
> and intermittent.
>
>
>
> Work proceeded smoothly for the coax removal for the OB16-3 which is
> now at
> 60 feet on the 24 foot mast and
>
> then the Cal-AV 2el 40 is at 42 feet.
>
> Work was somewhat slower when it came to raising the mast so the
> positioner could be slipped out;
>
> previously, you could get two winches, so one can hold the basket
> while the second is used to
>
> raise mast those couple of inches needed, but OSHA rules now prohibit
> two winches, so the crane had to
>
> swap the basket with a strap to lift, while the climber clipped in,
> and then go back and get the basket,
>
> several times. And similarly, since both antenna?s feed point is some
> distance from the mast, and
>
> with those 16 elements on top, only about 2 feet apart, the crane
> operator took lots of time to reposition
>
> out and then back in without taking off elements to move along the
> boom with the coax.
>
>
>
> Around 1pm, a city of Dallas inspector showed up and halted work
> because the permit required two policeman,
>
> which I had expected and was on the order also, but only one had been
> ordered, apparently, by Davis Crane,
>
> maybe, but this was a Keystone Cop discussion between the Davis guy,
> the cop, and the (REALLY NASTY) inspector,
>
> who finally relented, saying, well I?m not stopping your work now, got
> in his vehicle and drove away.
>
> Earlier he had told me that the reason the policemen were there was
> NOT for traffic control, the signs did that.
>
> They were there in case the crane tipped over so they could call for
help!.
>
>
>
> So both the cop and the Davis guy were worried about him coming back
> and giving us grief over that 3:30 limit,
>
> and there can be serious fines involved, so my tower guy got 5 minute
> warnings for the last half hour,
>
> and connected the last critical wire at 3:32. The crane shutdown took
> only
> 10 minutes, and he moved the crane
>
> so it was now parked and only blocking one lane, and then sat there 45
> minutes, waiting for the electrican to
>
> return to now repair the crane storage mechanism ? the crane was
> completely collapsed, but that whole unit
>
> was stuck about 3 feet above it?s cradle.
>
>
>
> So that lost time really hurt; it still took three more hours on
> Friday for him to climb and strap in and
>
> finish building and sealing the Bud box with the terminal block for
> the positioner, tie wrapping and taping
>
> the cable bundles, and finishing those details.
>
>
>
> I had purchased the new Orion 2800 positioner only, because last year,
> for the first time, I actually
>
> won something of value at the Contest Dinner, when I got a Green Heron
> controller. When we went to
>
> setup that box, we made some stupid error, but were very pleased when
> Jeff answered his phone and
>
> he walked us thru to correct our error. Just love that knob to point
> the beams.
>
>
>
> The cost of this crane was $2440.
>
>
>
> 73
>
>
>
> Barry, W5GN
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>
--
R. Kevin Stover
AC0H
ARRL
FISTS #11993
SKCC #215
NAQCC #3441
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