On 9/12/2012 2:09 PM, Doug Ronald wrote:
The reasoning behind demilitarizing a portable tower is beyond
comprehension, but it's probably part of the huge batch of regulations that
have been heaped on us within the past few years.
REPLY:
I've been bidding for decades on various surplus property, and after seeing
that a fantastic HF antenna had to be mutilated, I decided to find out why.
After many phone calls (this is many years ago, way before 9/11), I finally
reached the gentleman who decided this item was a military munitions list
item. This is before GovLiquidation existed when the government was
disposing of its surplus through its own agency, DRMS the Defense
Reutilization and Marketing Service. It all had to do with a 60 Minutes
piece where some guy in the Midwest had purchased missile parts
Which probably were not a security or safety issue, but they were
"missile parts" and to the unknowing and clueless public that meant
dangerous and irresponsible actions.
and was
stupid enough to be bragging about it to the sensationalist reporter.
Because of perceived public pressure,
That seems to be SOP for most agencies, particularly now. Take the EPA
and the mass of regulations they have implemented in the last 3 years
along with the heavy handed enforcement.
the government went way overboard and
started declaring ridiculous things as military munitions list items. Of
course Homeland Security has now made it even worse; almost every piece of
test equipment requires an EUC which is an End Use Certificate.
Can you imagine being able to purchase those P-51s now days that I
mentioned earlier?
You might to remove the 6 50's and ammo. No, you didn't get to take
them home or keep them<:-)) Some were removed and some weren't.
AFAIK the only ones who didn't dispose of planes was the Navy. They
even claim WWII salvaged planes as theirs to this day.
Why is it that Homeland Security doesn't make me feel any safer?
I have an implanted Defibrillator, require a medication that has, shall
we say nitrates in it, and have metal plates and screws in one leg, I
carry doctors certificates saying not to go through X-ray machines and
not to use wands on me. As they've been known to refuse to honor those
which in one case broke an 18 years old girls insulin pump when they
forced her to go through X-Ray which made the news (but not the
mainstream networks), I don't dare fly commercial any more. In the case
of the pump it just quit working, but it could just as easily dispensed
a fatal dose of insulin.
When I had my own, high performance plane (built in 1959) New ones cost
too much<:-))
http://www.rogerhalstead.com/833R/833r_photos.htm I could beat the
airlines out to Denver or down to Orlando, but since the heart attack
that is no longer an option. So it's now drive where ever I need to go.
Denver or Orlando was about where I'd have to stop and refuel or I could
have made it a bit farther before the break even point. It was fast
enough I could take off after breakfast, visit the kids and their kids
for lunch near Atlanta, shoot the breeze with them for a few hours and
still be home back in central Michigan in time for dinner. When I sold
it a couple months back it was costing more for gas per hour than the
total costs per hour (fixed and variable) the first decade I owned it.
How times have changed.
73
Roger (K8RI)
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