On Saturday 04 March 2017 08:08:38 Mark wrote:

> On 03/03/2017 11:26 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > And you've got way more giddyup for that than I have back left to do
> > it with.  Lets hope yours is as mild as ours was.  Nobody here even
> > put a blade on their riders or 4 wheelers, not enough snow.  Lots of
> > rain this last 6 weeks though, which we needed really really badly.
> >
> > Cheers, Gene Heskett
>
> Heh, speak for yerself.  While it was fairly mild this past February,
> I had the snow blower out again yesterday morning.  We got a wee bit
> more snow up here in Northern Michigan than you got there in West By
> God Virginny.  ;-)
>
>
> Mark

Well off topic folks, its story time!

I'd imagine so from looking at the weather radar.  You got pounded, 
several times.

Where are you from Iron Mountain?  I've been there several times as Russ 
had bought a tv station from a bankrupt preacher, and if it was off the 
air for more than X amount of time the commission would lift the 
license, so I was up there to make it make some kind of noise as cheaply 
as I could.  All this after I had officially retired June 30, 2002, even 
one late spring, smack in the middle of the worst tick season I've ever 
lived thru, about 6 weeks with the 8 bay superturnstile antenna laying 
on big crossed x gizmo's I had built to hold it about 5 feet off the 
ground, while I leak checked and replaced 11 feedlines that had been 
worn plumb thru by the wind flexing it. The preacher had put, on the top 
light platform designed to hold the usual pair of 660 watt top beacons, 
two 20 foot sticks of 4" square tubeing so it stuck up another 20 feet, 
the 2nd 20 footer being cut in 4ths and welded to the vertical stick so 
it formed a huge, painted white cross, and then hung 2, 1 kilowatt 
halogen floodlamps on top of that to light up the cross and blind all 
the folks fishing in the lakes that Iron Mountain was built on. He had 
no clue about the wind loading that created.  I saw those lamps doing 15 
foot figure 8's in the wind several times, so when the leaks got so bad 
that even a dry air compressor couldn't keep rain out of it, I got a guy 
and a big L10-11 crane to go up and take the cross off and throw it down 
in the weeds, then pull the antenna out of its socket and lay it on my 
supports while I looked for and fixed most of the leaks. That I did, but 
didn't have the gear to re-tune it for channel 8, so the VSWR was up 
some when it was re-installed in the tower, but it at least stayed on 
the air.

Unfunny, very sad thing, the gent whole did the take down work on top of 
the tower, hiking that several tons of antenna an extra inch because the 
crane was at its peak limit of just inches over 200 feet, he grabbed it 
and bounced and shoved it across the towertop to get it clear so it 
could be brought down.  He was the electrical guy at one of the local 
foundries, doubling as a crane operator at $dayjob, went in to work the 
next Monday morning, grabbed the pendent of one of the trolleys and 
found is was 500 volts ac hot, I never heard why, and could not let go. 
I went to his funeral up in Crystal Springs.  Walter Dooer.  Good man, 
well endowed with the patience of the biblical Job. His wife who was 
well into oldtimers prematurely, was un-console-able as he was her lord 
and master as the mentality went to hell.  Sad.  I understand she died a 
few weeks later, but by then I was home, and its a 1000 mile one way 
drive.

Another time I needed a weekend off from converting it to digital, and 
drove over to Ray Henry's place and had a couple pork chops off his 
lakeside grill for dinner.  Ray had retired, and had a business built up 
selling basswood blocks for carving to places like A.C.Moore craft 
chain. We talked some about what was still emc, and I described what I 
was doing with it. He seemed genuinely pleased to hear that I thought it 
was in good hands.

I visited his "shop" the next day, just over the MI/WI state line, and he 
sold me a big pile of butternut that I loaded into the big ford van and 
brought home.  Since put some of it as replacement panel inserts in all 
my kitchen cabinet doors. Nice. I still have a goodly amount of it left, 
waiting for the ideal project to make out of it. Too soft for tabletops 
though.  So I can say I've met the legendary Ray Henry!

As for WDHS-TV8, Russ owned it for much of the 18 years I worked for him, 
and it never aired a paid commercial except the 18 months or so when it 
broadcast the non-stop commercial programming from Guthie-Rinker for one 
of the women who had an extensive beauty product line. One of the former 
Charlies Angels I think. And WDHS was a "bonus" deal, we got the 
programming for nothing, and weren't paid any spiff for the sales 
generated.

When they wanted their sat receiver back instead of renewing the 
contract, it was said that in that 18 months, it had generated one phone 
order for less than 50 bucks worth of her products.  Cable penetration 
in Iron Mountain was 100% as there wasn't any real "on air" tv for a 
hundred miles around. Tough market to get any traction in.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. ;-)

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

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