Merry (belated) Christmas and HNY All!
Jim,
I hate to hear that! Fatigue near a base connection is a
common failure I see on freestanding towers. Loose connections and bad welds tend to
speed this process up from the ones I have analyzed. Moral of the story boys and girls: Tower
maintenance requires eternal vigilance!!!
Watch for any cracking or aberrations in the metal, welds or
galvanizing!!! Also look for any
strange movement in the tower under wind loads.
Hope you have a speedy “recovery”
Jim!!
73
Vice Director, Delta Div.
-----Original Message-----
From: James F. Boehner MD
[mailto:jboehner01@yahoo.com]
Sent:
To:
Subject: Merry Christmas!
Jim,
sorry for your tower, shack and station-but great that you did not have any
personal injury! Looks like the insurance company will have some work in front
of them.
On
a better note,
I
found a very interesting Christmas Story by Gary
http://arvideonews.com/otherstuff/A_Ham's_Night_Before_Christmas.html
I guess it has been around for a while, but this is
the first time I have seen it!
I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas/Holidays!
Have a happy new year!
'73
de JIM N2ZZ
ARRL
Vice Director
ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio™
From:
Sent:
To:
Cc: etg@tiemlaw.com;
greentiem@comcast.net; k6jat@arrl.org
Subject: [
Greetings
all and Merry Christmas!
There I
was checking my antenna system to decipher all the movement I saw during
the current storm. It was not cranked down and the gusts were getting
severe across the top of the ridge. Maybe the missing eucalyptus trees removed
some wind protection, but then the entire tower came crashing down on my shack
with me in it! One of the 3 legs snapped just above the base bolts and
the 2 others bent right over. What a noise and am I lucky! I'm
looking at what's left of the PRO-67B right outside my hf operating position, 5
feet away from me. Only the top most vertical hit the roof, but did not
penetrate it. I'm still a little shaky. The US Tower
freestanding tower had been up for almost 17 years.
I hope
all of you and your loved ones are well and having a wonderful holiday.
Be safe!