The amateur radio community has lost one of the great advocates for our hobby. Paul was such a welcoming person to all. He introduced so many of us to amateur radio and inspired us to explore amateur radio by building your own equipment and operating in contests. Many of us got our first taste of multi-operator contesting at the WØIAH farm. 73, Matt Holden KØBBC Director, Dakota Division, American Radio Relay League Director, Association of Emergency Radio Organizations Deputy Director, Bloomington AUXCOMM Allan W Schlaugat <yahoo@n9isn.com> Wed, Oct 31, 8:42 PM (12 hours ago) to MWA I received very very sad news this evening. Paul W0AIH passed away late this afternoon (Wednesday). It was a tower accident involving his 40m tower he was working on in getting ready for SS. Mary says he fell 60 feet. No information on services as of yet. I'm still in shock and I am out of tears. 73 Al N9ISN (one of the W0AIH ops) ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Paul Husby <husby002@gmail.com> Date: Thu, Nov 1, 2018 at 12:18 AM Subject: [MWA] Details on the death of W0AIH To: <mwa@w0aa.org> Paul was working on the 15M tower, the 4/4/4/4 this afternoon. His apparent plan was to straighten a bent element and check on a rotor or two that were having problems. (This 15M tower is 200' tall, with separate Ham-M's at each antenna starting at 50'.) I don't know that Paul had been working on this tower recently, but he apparently had a line to the top and a pulley up there. His usual practice would be to keep a 1/4" poly rope up to the top and back if he was going to work on a tower intermittently. Then, when ready to work on it, he would use that small rope to pull his good rope up and back down, which is what he did today. For a couple decades Paul has liked to "ride the rope" up and down, climbing the tower only when necessary, or when a winch operator wasn't available. Today a friend was running the winch, not Mary. Paul had done some work probably at the 50' level and was at about 60' when the winch operator said the line went slack. The pulley had become disconnected from the top of the tower. As I said, I don't think Paul had been on this tower recently, and he didn't remember that this pulley was not properly attached for work. Normally, a web "choker" would go through the ring on the top of the pulley, around a tower leg a couple times, and then its ends joined with a heavy shackle. Today, only a nylon rope held the pulley, and it broke. KB9S said it looked weathered. It had probably been up there quite a while, and Paul's memory hasn't been what it used to be. He was not up to the top of the tower today at all, only working near the bottom antenna. It sounds like the kind of small rope he might use on his belt to initially carry the pully and line up to the top of the tower. Why he left it there without a proper choker will be a mystery. I'm guessing it was many months ago, planning to do this work, but something took him away and he never got back to it until now. I am sorry that the winch operator had to see it, but glad that it was nothing within his control. I stopped by the Farm Monday on my way home from Chicago. We talked about CQWW Phone, and Paul said he operated more phone this time than ever before. He was most excited that he worked a TF friend just before the end on 160M. That really made a great end to the weekend. He did tell me, "maybe next year will be the last year for the multiop. It's just getting to be too much work to get ready." That surprised me, as he has said that he thought he had another 10 years left in him. It's a shame it got cut short. No word on arrangements. My wife, Paul's youngest daughter, just arrived in 5H-land yesterday, and I am still waiting to get through to her. I'll let you know. 73 Paul W0UC _______________________________________________ Minnesota Wireless Association mailing list To post a message: MWA@w0aa.org List Help: http://mail.w0aa.org/mailman/listinfo/mwa_w0aa.org MWA Official Web Site: http://www.w0aa.org