tower loading (tower failures)

[AA1K Jon Zaimes]

>Bryan Sparrowhawk writes:
>
>>...Load us up with your tower post mortems.  
... certainly a couple of them fell 
>>under interesting and NON-OBVIOUS  circumstances that we could all 
>>learn from.
>
>>de KD7LS, bryan
>
It was an EZ Way crank-up, tilt-over, about 20 feet or so, just two
sections. A friend had given it to me in Connecticut and we hauled it with
us to the new QTH near Bear, Del., in 1981. The post was easy to install --
all I had to do was dig the hole and put in the cement-filled post. I
mounted an AR22 type rotator on the top post, with about 8 feet of mast
above it, holding a homebrew 4-el. 10 m yagi at the top. Taxing it just a
bit, but it withstood many a wind over the next several years, till a
tornado came through and bent it over just above the lower section. I still
have the pieces, maybe I'll use them for Beverage supports some day.

BTW, my 3-year-old son, Adam, managed to slip away and take his first climb
on this tower -- unobserved and unnoticed till XYL AB1P spotted him. He had
made it up to the 15-foot level (without a safety belt!) but couldn't figure
out how to get down.

It was my last tower without anti-climb sections.

Now (at age 16) Adam occassionally climbs the 120-footer to give me a hand
-- with a belt!

73/Jon




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