[Towertalk] Dismantling towers

[Bill Wall]

Hi all;
Tom is correct about old towers and taking them down. You have no idea of
the engineering that was used in the erection of this unknown tower. Just
one story. An extra class Ham, a friend of mine was given a 200' Rohn 45g
tower that was being used for MDS (TV reception) at an apartment project,
for just taking it down. No decent climbing belt, no proper tools and a man
on the tower who was a billboard sign erector. The man on the ground left
this young man with no experience, who had a hot date that night at the
sight. With a few open end wrenches he proceeded to climb and take out all
of the tower leg bolts as he went up. His motive was to speed up the job.
The ground man showed up with some rented cable cutters. The home made Gin
Pole was in place when the man on the ground cut one of the guy cables. 475'
the top tower section and the man on top traveled through the tops of
several pine trees. The paramedics said he would not survive, but after 7
months in the hospital he is back to work.  Please be careful when taking
down a gift. I have many more true stories to tell if any one is interested.
                                     Bill KC4UZ
----- Original Message -----
From: <n4kg@juno.com>
To: <TOWERTALK@CONTESTING.COM>
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2002 8:03 AM
Subject: Re: [Towertalk] Dismantling towers


> Another N4KG  NEVERism:
>
> NEVER *assume* a tower base alone will support an unguyed tower,
> even just a few sections unless you KNOW the exact details of the
> base.  Rohn cautions that most tower accidents happen while
> REMOVING unknown towers.
>
> My prefered method is to use temporary guys (at 20 ft) and then to
> either lay the last two sections over or use another set of temporary
> guys at 10 ft.
>
> Tom  N4KG
>
> On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:10:02 -0400 "Mark Pride" <mpride@us.ibm.com>
> writes:
> > Here is another caution  when taking down someone else's  tower.
> > Disconnecting guys along the way up and dropping the sections in
> > thirty
> > minutes is quite a feat (in stupidity).  I once took down a tower,
> > removing
> > guys starting at the upper set, and working my way down (the proper
> > method).  On the last set, if it hadn't been for a few trees to
> > catch the
> > still connected guys,I would probably be dead now.  The base was
> > barely in
> > concrete - apparently the original owner just set it on ledge and
> > put about
> > 2 inches of concrete on it to keep the base "stable".  When one of
> > the 3
> > guys was released, the tower just went over!  What a surprise to
> > ride it
> > down from 40 ft,, while another well known contester at 35 ft. goes
> > for the
> > ride of his life too!  The tower stopped at 5 ft. above ground due
> > to guys
> > being caught in the tree branches.
> >
> > Lesson learned:  Add a temporary set of guys at probably the 20 ft.
> > level
> > to improve the safety margin with unknown bases.
> >
> > If the tower was properly installed, it would have made for a
> > simpler
> > scenario.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Mark, K1RX (that other NH tower crew)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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