On 9/1/2010 5:03 PM, Cqtestk4xs@aol.com wrote:
> I echo K3ND's experience. Lots of 200 footers. Biggest birds to sit on
> them were red tailed hawks. They always sat on the boom or the top of the
> tower. Some bird crap, but that was it. They sometimes flew off when I
> climbed, sometimes they didn't. But never they bothered me in any way.
> Although it was rather unnerving to see one about ten feet away 90 feet up on
> the tower sitting on the boom as I went up the tower.
Hawks being "up there" do not bother me, unless they think my airplane
is dinner. They've never bothered me on the tower, nor have Bald Eagles
of which we have a number in the area. Turkey Buzzards too. They are
not only large and ugly, but it's inadvisable to scare them if overhead.
They have a much more effective defense mechanism than most birds and IT
DO STINK!
However, I'm just in the finishing stages of a very time and labor
intensive operation of repairing and replacing antennas due to birds.
It's also proving to be a bit pricey. A flock of cormorants decided my
6-meter Yagi with the 30 foot boom was a good place to "over night" and
they are big birds. I chased them away best I could at least 5 times,
but every time they were back within 5 minutes. They eventually broke
the boom truss on the 6-meter yagi which fell across the driven element
of the tribander. The only things left working were the 24L 144 and 22L
440 arrays, plus the wire antennas hanging off the sides of the tower.
I would have resorted to more effective measures, but I live in a
subdivision and only a slight miscalculation could be hard on the antennas.
At least as I understand it, we are now going to be able to use
fireworks in the state, so a cherry bomb or M-80 launcher may be in the
works.
One neighbor had some smaller mortars (aerial bombs), but with my luck
it'd go off right at the antenna which might lead to even more work than
the Cormorants caused.
>
> I think most of them thought of the towers as dead trees where they would
> get a good look around for dinner below. One side benefit.....I never
> worried about snakes when I walked around the yard, the hawks took care of
> that.
We have a few Mississauga Rattlers, but in general they are quite
small. OTOH as I can testify, a bite in the bicep is not only colorful,
but quite uncomfortable. (Be careful when trimming shrubs. They like to
wrap around limbs). I never got bit catching them, but one got me when
trimming the shrubs in front of the house when we lived about 60 miles
NW of here.
73
Roger (K8RI)
>
> I hope I have them around at my new QTH in FL.
>
> Bill KH7XS/K4XS
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