Oh, my. Such sad news. Have known Paul for many years. Great Ham and mentor. 73 Rick - K5UR ... -----Original Message----- From: Matt Holden <mtholde@gmail.com> To: arrl-odv <arrl-odv@arrl.org> Sent: Thu, Nov 1, 2018 9:24 am Subject: [arrl-odv:27650] W0AIH SK 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 usto amateur radio and inspired us to explore amateur radio by buildingyour own equipment and operating in contests.Many of us got our first taste of multi-operator contesting at the WØIAH farm.73,Matt Holden KØBBCDirector, Dakota Division, American Radio Relay LeagueDirector, Association of Emergency Radio OrganizationsDeputy Director, Bloomington AUXCOMMAllan W Schlaugat <yahoo@n9isn.com>Wed, Oct 31, 8:42 PM (12 hours ago)to MWAI received very very sad news this evening. Paul W0AIH passed away latethis afternoon (Wednesday). It was a tower accident involving his 40m towerhe 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 AMSubject: [MWA] Details on the death of W0AIHTo: <mwa@w0aa.org>Paul was working on the 15M tower, the 4/4/4/4 this afternoon. Hisapparent plan was to straighten a bent element and check on a rotor ortwo that were having problems. (This 15M tower is 200' tall, withseparate Ham-M's at each antenna starting at 50'.)I don't know that Paul had been working on this tower recently, but heapparently had a line to the top and a pulley up there. His usualpractice would be to keep a 1/4" poly rope up to the top and back if hewas going to work on a tower intermittently. Then, when ready to workon it, he would use that small rope to pull his good rope up and backdown, which is what he did today. For a couple decades Paul has likedto "ride the rope" up and down, climbing the tower only when necessary,or when a winch operator wasn't available. Today a friend was runningthe winch, not Mary. Paul had done some work probably at the 50' leveland 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 hedidn't remember that this pulley was not properly attached for work.Normally, a web "choker" would go through the ring on the top of thepulley, around a tower leg a couple times, and then its ends joined witha heavy shackle. Today, only a nylon rope held the pulley, and itbroke. KB9S said it looked weathered. It had probably been up therequite a while, and Paul's memory hasn't been what it used to be. He wasnot up to the top of the tower today at all, only working near thebottom antenna.It sounds like the kind of small rope he might use on his belt toinitially carry the pully and line up to the top of the tower. Why heleft it there without a proper choker will be a mystery. I'm guessingit was many months ago, planning to do this work, but something took himaway and he never got back to it until now. I am sorry that the winchoperator 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 talkedabout CQWW Phone, and Paul said he operated more phone this time thanever before. He was most excited that he worked a TF friend just beforethe end on 160M. That really made a great end to the weekend. He didtell me, "maybe next year will be the last year for the multiop. It'sjust getting to be too much work to get ready." That surprised me, as hehas said that he thought he had another 10 years left in him. It's ashame it got cut short.No word on arrangements. My wife, Paul's youngest daughter, justarrived in 5H-land yesterday, and I am still waiting to get through toher. I'll let you know.73Paul W0UC_______________________________________________Minnesota Wireless Association mailing listTo post a message: MWA@w0aa.orgList Help: http://mail.w0aa.org/mailman/listinfo/mwa_w0aa.orgMWA Official Web Site: http://www.w0aa.org_______________________________________________arrl-odv mailing listarrl-odv@reflector.arrl.orghttps://reflector.arrl.org/mailman/listinfo/arrl-odv