[WISPA] Fw: [TowerTalk] Field Day tower fatality
Lets be careful out there guys. Even when you do it right things happen. marlon - Original Message - From: k7...@aol.com To: cq-cont...@contesting.com Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 12:16 PM Subject: [TowerTalk] Field Day tower fatality I just got this and hadn't heard about it. Sad story. http://www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/2009/06/30/local_news/623347.txt Cheers, SteveK7LXC TOWER TECH **Looking for love this summer? Find it now on AOL Personals. (http://personals.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuslove0003) ___ ___ TowerTalk mailing list towert...@contesting.com http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Fw: [TowerTalk] Field Day tower fatality
Wow, it bent at the base?! On 7/8/09, Marlon K. Schafer o...@odessaoffice.com wrote: Lets be careful out there guys. Even when you do it right things happen. marlon - Original Message - From: k7...@aol.com To: cq-cont...@contesting.com Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 12:16 PM Subject: [TowerTalk] Field Day tower fatality I just got this and hadn't heard about it. Sad story. http://www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/2009/06/30/local_news/623347.txt Cheers, SteveK7LXC TOWER TECH **Looking for love this summer? Find it now on AOL Personals. (http://personals.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuslove0003) ___ ___ TowerTalk mailing list towert...@contesting.com http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 When you have eliminated the impossible, that which remains, however improbable, must be the truth. --- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Fw: [TowerTalk] Field Day tower fatality
On 7/8/2009 5:45 AM, Josh Luthman wrote: Wow, it bent at the base?! My thoughts too. There had to be a cause; there's more to the story. But hamfests are usually run by guys that generally know what they're doing so that does lead one to ponder. Geez, and I climb some pretty old towers sometimes . . . It's the ones I refuse to climb that scare me. You know, the kind that you can easily put into motion by leaning on them? The ones that aren't even vertical anymore? LOL! I recently in fact noticed one of them folded over the guys house from a windy day. I would appear he didn't take my words of advice quite as urgently as I was trying to sound. Rk WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Fw: [TowerTalk] Field Day tower fatality
San news. Richard 2009/7/8 Rick Kunze rku...@colusanet.com On 7/8/2009 5:45 AM, Josh Luthman wrote: Wow, it bent at the base?! My thoughts too. There had to be a cause; there's more to the story. But hamfests are usually run by guys that generally know what they're doing so that does lead one to ponder. Geez, and I climb some pretty old towers sometimes . . . It's the ones I refuse to climb that scare me. You know, the kind that you can easily put into motion by leaning on them? The ones that aren't even vertical anymore? LOL! I recently in fact noticed one of them folded over the guys house from a windy day. I would appear he didn't take my words of advice quite as urgently as I was trying to sound. Rk WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Fw: [TowerTalk] Field Day tower fatality
It appears they use a couple different towers. The matter has my interest as well. I wouldn't expect a tower to bend at the base. Perhaps it was the crankup portable tower, as the news article discussed different accounts of 30' and 60' towers, and that could possibly do both heights. Those would have a more complicated base than fixed towers, so there might be something to that. We'd have to wait for more field day photos to see which tower they don't use anymore. 25' of old rohn 25, someone else with no safety gear. http://picasaweb.google.com/blossomlandara/FD2008?feat=directlink#5315649388578032802 25-30 feet of old TV tower http://picasaweb.google.com/blossomlandara/FD2009?feat=directlink#5352471737660832322 Decent crankup tower http://picasaweb.google.com/blossomlandara/FD2009?feat=directlink#5352470344375866786 Another old Rohn 25 with the unfortunate fellow climbing it. He does use a belt, but no other safety gear. It's not a business, so OSHA doesn't likely apply. http://picasaweb.google.com/blossomlandara/FD2007?feat=directlink# While hams usually have vast experience in doing what they do, the safety standards are never to the degree that is expected of business. Frequent dissasembly and reassembly of towers might degrade them too. On Wed, Jul 08, 2009 at 07:10:52AM -0700, Rick Kunze wrote: On 7/8/2009 5:45 AM, Josh Luthman wrote: Wow, it bent at the base?! My thoughts too. There had to be a cause; there's more to the story. But hamfests are usually run by guys that generally know what they're doing so that does lead one to ponder. Geez, and I climb some pretty old towers sometimes . . . It's the ones I refuse to climb that scare me. You know, the kind that you can easily put into motion by leaning on them? The ones that aren't even vertical anymore? LOL! I recently in fact noticed one of them folded over the guys house from a windy day. I would appear he didn't take my words of advice quite as urgently as I was trying to sound. Rk WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- /* Jason Philbrook | Midcoast Internet Solutions - Wireless and DSL KB1IOJ| Broadband Internet Access, Dialup, and Hosting http://f64.nu/ | for Midcoast Mainehttp://www.midcoast.com/ */ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Fw: [TowerTalk] Field Day tower fatality
This guy sounded like a pro so he likely was climbing safely. What can cause a Field Day tower to bend at the base? 1. Overloading a tower with too many large HF antennas is certainly a possibility during Field Day. 2. The tower may have been old and rusted inside although perhaps the rust was not visible on the outside. For Field Day you typically use some tower sections that someone has had laying around on the ground for years. 3. The tower may have been guyed incorrectly. If one of the three temporary Field Day guy anchors gave way then the other two may have pulled the tower over. If the tower base was well anchored then two of the legs could easily be bent by the fall of the tower itself. Number 3 actually happened to me during Field Day perhaps 10 years ago. The tower climber was near the top when one of the temporary guy lines started losing tension. I don't remember if the guy anchor was pulling out or the line itself (non-metallic, some type of rope) started loosening. The result was the tower started to topple over. A couple of us guys on the ground made a dash for the tower guy lines and the tower base. We managed to reach the slipping guy line and hold onto it. The tower was now 25 degrees or so tilted in the opposite direction but it stopped in that position and the climber scrambled down. If there had been another one or two seconds delay in reaching that guy line, the tower and the climber would have fallen all the way to the ground. Did I mention that the tower was on a mountaintop fire-lookout site and if the tower had fallen, it would have fallen NOT just to the ground but down into the canyon below? I'll remember this tower-fall event for the rest of my life. The root cause was either our sloppy installation of the temporary guy line anchor or the poor way the temporary rope guy line was tied off. jack Rick Kunze wrote: On 7/8/2009 5:45 AM, Josh Luthman wrote: Wow, it bent at the base?! My thoughts too. There had to be a cause; there's more to the story. But hamfests are usually run by guys that generally know what they're doing so that does lead one to ponder. Geez, and I climb some pretty old towers sometimes . . . It's the ones I refuse to climb that scare me. You know, the kind that you can easily put into motion by leaning on them? The ones that aren't even vertical anymore? LOL! I recently in fact noticed one of them folded over the guys house from a windy day. I would appear he didn't take my words of advice quite as urgently as I was trying to sound. Rk WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- Jack Unger - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc. Author - "Deploying License-Free Wireless WANs" Serving the Broadband Wireless Industry Since 1993 www.ask-wi.com 818-227-4220 jun...@ask-wi.com Twitter - "wireless_jack" WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Fw: [TowerTalk] Field Day tower fatality
That's really unfortunate, but part of the issue. Field Day and other Ham Fest activities are kinda like an annual racing regatta. I've always been a cruiser, but racers get out the slide rules and factor the smallest guage for their shrouds, stays, and other standing rigging just to cut back on a few pounds of weight. These events aren't nearly as extreme as sailboats rigged for racing, obviously, but it is a 'pack it in - pack it out' sort of event, which dictates less hardware to lug around. Rick Kunze wrote: On 7/8/2009 5:45 AM, Josh Luthman wrote: Wow, it bent at the base?! My thoughts too. There had to be a cause; there's more to the story. But hamfests are usually run by guys that generally know what they're doing so that does lead one to ponder. -- Bradley D. Thornton Manager Network Services NorthTech Computer TEL: +1.949.544.1931 http://NorthTech.US WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
