As I mentioned, the tree surgeon made it out this afternoon and did
remove a lot from that big Ash tree WNW of the shop. Unfortunately it's
not far enough WNW of the shop. They removed enough off the south side
so I can now raise and lower the 40 foot Aluminum tower with the AV640
vertical on top. That's close to 70 feet I'm swinging through there.
They also removed enough to give me a good 35 feet of clearance between
the tower and the tree above about 40 feet.
They were due to show up at 11:00 AM, but didn't make it until nearly
2:00. We wanted to start early as we were supposed to get scattered
thunderstorms this afternoon. They hadn't been working long before the
sound of thunder could be heard. A quick look at real time RADAR on the
computer showed we were only about a half mile from the edge of a severe
thunderstorm warning area to the North and there were to of them bearing
down on us. It appeared we were going to be stuck between the two large
storms that were close together.
While the guy in the HyRanger bucket was working near the top of the
tree with the HyRanger arm nearly at full extension it was getting
pretty noisy and the crew boss was starting to get excited. It turns
out that last piece was the largest and required tying it off so they
could remove the big piece and then cut off smaller pieces to drop. He
remarked he wanted to get the HyRanger out of there before it rained
hard and he would have to call a wrecker to get them out. I told him I
paid to get him there, I didn't want to have to pay again to get him
out. <:-)) At-any-rate, they managed to get the truck backed up which
was made interesting with the chipper in tow and on the driveway before
the rain hit.
We were really fortunate. Just two miles to the North of us they had
3/4" hail and 3 miles to the south it was over half inch hail. At that
point we had enough rain to get the drive way wet. They had the truck
and chipper parked on the shop concrete apron and the mess pretty well
cleaned up before the next storm hit. That one was only rain, but it was
a lot of rain. Looking at the tracks/trenches in the North yard I'm
truly thankful they got that truck out of there before the rain hit.
So, with the rope to the pulleys on the 30' of 25G to the single pulley
on the 40' Aluminum tower and then back to the 25G one person can now
easily raise and lower the little 40 footer with the AV-640 on top. Of
course it's a lot handier with two working together, but that is still a
lot better than the five it took before. One of those five had to be
pulling sideways on the one guys to the upper portion of the AV-640 to
get it to mostly miss the top of the tree.
The whole thing took about two hours and I didn't have to worry about
dropping one trunk into the shop or the other over one set of guys to
the 45G, PLUS they only removed the stuff that really needed removing
and we still have some shade out there. of course I have a LOT of work
to do removing the ruts from that north yard which WAS looking like a
golf course green.<sigh>
WD8BPT stopped by this evening and the two of us put the tower back up
in short order. Now I just need to get a coax connector on the cable to
test it out. Tomorrow I might even make it up the 45G with the tram
line. Quite likely wishful thinking as I have an appointment with a
personal trainer at the community center. But...Working out with those
people has me back to the point where I can climb when a bit over a year
ago I was still learning how to walk again. Now on to the next
antenna/tower project.
73
Roger (K8RI - ARRL Life Member)
www.rogerhalstead.com
N833R (World's oldest Debonair)
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