[CQ-Contest] Field Day tower fatality

[Dennis Vernacchia]

This is a very sad to hear !

Years ago the Palomar ARC ( W6NWG )  in San Diego area decided there would
be NO Tower Climbing and
engineered a portable tilt up bases and tilt brackets for antennas and we
could also install pulleys arms
for dipoles etc, all at ground level.

We use all crank up towers with regularly checked cables

If I can find the photos, I would be happy to send to anyone interested or
post them to my
PIcasa web web photo album if many requests.

This type of incident can be easily avoided with these innovations

Also during tilt up of the tower with antennas installed, from horizontal to
vertical position,
a designated FD Safety Officer must be present and tower crew is constantly
reminded during
the raising to keep hands and fingers out of sections even though cables are
checked
so there is no slack in them.  I am pushing for getting clamps made so that
sections
are positively held in place during tilt up in case there is some other form
of cable issue
or a slack cable or winch anomaly is not seen.

73, Dennis N6KI
San Diego





On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 12:16 PM, <K7LXC at aol.com> wrote:

> I just got this and hadn't heard about it. Sad  story.
>
> http://www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/2009/06/30/local_news/623347.txt
>
> Cheers,
> Steve    K7LXC
> TOWER TECH
> **************Looking for love this summer? Find it now on AOL Personals.
> (http://personals.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuslove00000003)
> _______________________________________________
> CQ-Contest mailing list
> CQ-Contest at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
>