[TowerTalk] Everything is too dangerous

[Guy Olinger, K2AV]

NO, everything is NOT too dangerous.

A certain FEW things ARE dangerous and should be undertaken with caution and some D*** good professional engineering in hand. 

He who can't tell the difference between tinkering with structural steel, and components on printed circuit boards, is placing himself in a category with bad actuarial stats.

He who doesn't recognize that this ALREADY IS a litigious society and presses ahead without considering consequences is just as d#@* as someone who decides to kick the sleeping bulldog just because they have the freedom to.

With computers these days, one can invent, that's REALLY INVENT, in the abstract medium of computer simulation. 

Oh, about that guy that didn't have the plans for the tower, wasn't that a problem with the licensing or permitting process? One can rant and rave about the unfairness of a permitting process (and it may BE REALLY UNFAIR), but to ignore it and "throw it up there anyway" is just going to use up your money, and the process will still be there when the smoke settles, fair or unfair. Getting an unfair process off the books is noble, but we don't always win.

So, since when did pragmatism or careful professional approaches to risky situations imply no creativeness, no inventiveness, nothing new, or a stiffled life? Not in my dictionary. 

The great ones are the ones who work the law and get it up anyway, who spend the time to work out stresses in the design and get it up anyway, who invent stuff that DOES work and DOESN'T risk. A lot of them MAY be commercial, but are you saying that an inventor that decides to make a living among his inventions is somehow diminished, and our use or purchase of his inventions makes us unworthy?

Well...  Then forget SSB, we didn't invent it. Make your own test equipment. Make your own diodes, transistors and tubes. Use kite string to guy our towers. Bolt 50 foot side mounted towers to a single 2x4 stud at 15 feet. Forget good insulation on wires, that diminishes risk, ad nauseum. We're supposed to be inventors and take risks.

Oh, and *I'm* the one who gets to decide if I'm a laughingstock or not. And I choose to live life out in a way that allows me to BOTH climb around on my tower and tinker with antennas AND live long enough to play with my great-great-grandchildren and NOT leave my wife a widow before the appointed time.

And the reason I don't fly homemade aircraft is because I have neither time nor money. But if I could and wanted to, I would be spending some serious time in school learning what the pros know.

73

> 
> From: Zoltan.Pitman@libertel.nl
> Date: 2001/03/09 Fri PM 06:20:54 EST
> To: towertalk@contesting.com
> Subject: RE: [TowerTalk] Everything is too dangerous
> 
> > It's true.  The US has turned into a nervous
> > hand-wringing old lady whose afraid of her own shadow.
> >  I've been spending a lot of time in Italy and France,
> > and we are becoming the butt of the joke if not an
> > outright laughingstock over there.
> 
> 
> Yup, this assumption is not far away from reality...
> 
> IMHO, Brian, K3KO hit the bull's eye with his posting about innovation,
> experimenting and it's relation to amateur radio. 
> 
> What makes me extremely sad is seeing that an email reflector, like
> Towertalk, where one is supposed to help one another with practical advice's
> without trying to pursue his own financial interest has become a channel of
> not-even-hidden classified advertisements. 
> 
> If someone asks a question here, the answer is "buy this" or "you need this
> and that product" but at least "don't even consider anything, which is not
> clearly stated in the specs". 
> 
> The weirdest thing I've read here when a poor soul from W5 was convinced
> lately to sell his own self-supporting steel tower instead of erecting it
> because of lack of original blueprints... 
> 
> This hobby was always about experimenting AND engineering and it should
> remain so. 
> 
> 73 de Zoli HA1AG
> 
> who erects and maintains his towers himselfs and is still alive (and not
> even sued to bankrupcy)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > --- alsopb <alsopb@gloryroad.net> wrote:
> > > I guess in the US society has progressed to the
> > > point where
> > > "experimenters" and do it yourselfer's are no longer
> > > tolerated. 
> > > Almost anything has to be done by a certified,
> > > licensed and heavily
> > > insured entity.  
> > > 
> > > Too bad, the Ham Radio hobby was supposed to foster
> > > experimentation.
> > > 
> > > Imagine how far we WOULDN'T have come if Armstrong
> > > couldn't have built
> > > his 400' wooden towers to prove that FM works. 
> > > Imagine if Watt's
> > > steam engine was deemed to dangerous an experiment. 
> > > Coal? Too
> > > dangerous to mine.  And heaven forbid, who would
> > > ever sanction using
> > > an explosive and flammable liquid like gasoline to
> > > power personal
> > > autos.  
> > > 
> > > 73 de Brian/K3KO
> 
> --
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> 
> 


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