[TowerTalk] Newsline excerpt - 2000' Tower falls

[Richard T. Mainhart]

Believe it ... it happens.

Iwo Jima, Volcano Island, Japan - 1965 
During routine maintenance (replacing a corroded horizontal member) on a
1350' tower, the workers incorrectly calculated the force vector when
installing a temporary brace. When the corroded brace was removed, the
tower fell in a nasty pile about 100' radius, crushing the LORAN-C
transmitters and the cement block building they were in. To ensure this
wouldn't happen again, the engineers rebuilt the transmitter building 500
feet away from the base of the tower (overkill? What overkill?) ... and
guess what? The tower hasn't fallen yet!

Now, the guy wires weren't so neat. We're talking about 2-1/2 inch
diameter laid wire rope with insulators here. When I was on the island in
1989-90 (as KA2IJ no less) I found one of the guy wires about a mile away
from the tower in some very thick jungle. This piece was well over 50
feet long (strange enough there were no insulators on this chunk) and was
well and truly grown over. 

In 1987, the Coast Guard dropped a 1000' tower on Yap Island, and it too
was in a fairly neat pile. Regretably, no one took pictures the day they
dropped the tower, and the next day it was gone! Scavengers took the
whole thing overnight! Not sure how small a pile this one ended up, but
there they didn't care if they caved in the building (lost the lease, had
to move the station to Guam).

73,

Rick  WB3EXR
(KA2IJ 1989-1990)


On Thu,  3 Apr 97 04:35:07 PST k4sb@avana.net writes:
>This is indeed an unfortunate happening, but this story also lacks 
>credibility
>as to the facts involved ( with no disrespect to Jerry who posted it 
>).
>
>There is simply no way I will believe a 2000' tower colapsed within a 
>70' radius.
>
>73,
>
>Ed
>-------------------------------------
>Name: Edward W. Sleight
>E-mail: k4sb@avana.net
>Date: 4/3/97
>Time: 4:35:07 AM
>
>This message was sent by Chameleon 
>-------------------------------------
>
>
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