Unfortunately, I can top most of these horror stories. For 25 years I've been
a volunteer lawyer for the ARRL and am supposed to be knowledgeable about
towers and zoning stuff. We have helped numerous hams with tower legal
problems. After being off the air for 8 years, I finally bought a 55'
motorized, tilt-over tower from a ham who was moving to a condo in Florida. I
had my guys dig a 5' deep hole, installed the mounting bolts, rebar cage, and
filled it full of 48 bags of concrete which we had to mix ourselves in a rented
concrete mixer. Started the concrete at 4 pm. At 8:30 pm we ran out of sacks of
concrete mix and the hole was only 1/2 full! We rushed to the store and got
there just as Home Depot was closing. Had to beg them to sell us 45 more bags
of the stuff. Got it just in time. We didn't finish pouring the concrete until
1 a.m.
Three weeks later (I had been out of town) we erected the tower. Then
my next door neighbor pointed out to me that I had violated the side-line
restrictions on erecting towers, and if the tower ever fell over, it would hit
his house. He was absolutely correct. Rather than fight him and city hall, we
dug a new hole and started all over further back in the yard. Now all is well.
But of all people, I should have known better!
Abraham Lincoln said: "He who represents himself in legal matters has
a fool for a client." He was so right <g>.
Dale K4ROZ
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