Fw: [TowerTalk] 2 Hams killed erecting a tower.

[Michael Tope]

> Hi Blake,
>
> I didn't mean to imply that I don't have any feelings  for the families
> and friends of the unfortunate climbers. I have buried too many close
> family members of my own not to. As you point out - this is truly
> a sad situation. My point was merely to poke a little fun at those who
> automatically chime in with this "Darwin Award" stuff when somebody
> allegedly makes a mistake, especially when said somebody might be a
> card carrying React member.
>
> A local CBer and his son installed my first ham radio antenna for me
> (I was 13 and not allowed to climb). As I recall they had safety belts
> and used a gin pole when they were putting up towers for people. The
> were two other local CBers who my grandfather introduced me to.
> Both these guys had 70 foot towers and vertical yagi H-frames -
> very impressive setups (the son of one of these fellows now holds a
> ham ticket).
>
> The fact is that we don't know what happened in this situation. The
> situation could have been anything from a bunch of yahoo's climbing
> while intoxicated to a group of pros who just had some bad luck.
> Whenever I hear of a situation like this, I try to reflect on my own
> tower climbing habits and ask myself where am I pushing the envelope
> and cutting too many corners (last Saturday I was in a hurry and didn't
> use my gorilla hooks on the way up the tower), where do I have the
> engineering facts, and where am I making intuitive leaps of faith? Just
> like our own mistakes, the best that we can in the face of these
tragedies,
> is learn from them.
>
> Sorry for the "off color" remarks.
>
> 73 de Mike, W4EF
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <n4gi@juno.com>
> To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
> Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 6:57 PM
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 2 Hams killed erecting a tower.
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 21 Mar 2000 16:07:43 -0800 Michael Tope <w4ef@pacbell.net>
> > writes:
> > >
> > > Darwinian "cleansing" of the gene pool would only apply if the
> >
> > CBers or not, a mistake is a mistake.  Still human lives lost.....
> >
> > What a shame this thread is.
> >
> >
> > Blake M. Meinecke,    N4GI
> >
> >
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>


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