[TowerTalk] The Birds and the Wannabes (Was: Government Study)

[Rick Tavan]

Well, Don, you see, it's like this: Birds fly up in the air. Towers are 
up there, too. But towers aren't Natural, they are Human-Made. And 
that's a terrible problem. I mean, everything that is Human-Made is a 
terrible problem, but especially Big Ugly, Industrial Looking Towers. 
(And airports, too, but that's another story.) So back to your question: 
How would you like it if some larger species suddenly started changing 
Your Environment? Not much, eh? That's what I thought. And that's how 
the poor little birdies feel when these Big, Ugly, Industrial Looking 
Towers start springing up in Their Environment. They are probably 
traumatized to the point of defecating every time they perch on one. You 
wouldn't want this, would you? No! You want the birdy wirdies to 
defecate on top of Beautiful, Tall Trees where they always have. So 
every time someone proposes to erect a Big Ugly, Industrial Looking 
Tower, we should do a Big, Expensive Environmental Impact Study. Not 
because we expect to learn anything from the Big, Expensive 
Environmental Impact Study - we already know it will conclude that the 
Big Ugly, Industrial Looking Tower will cause Irreparable Harm to the 
Environment. In fact, we would prefer to outlaw Big Ugly, Industrial 
Looking Towers completely and permanently. But that would require 
changing the Almighty Building Codes and changing all those Almighty 
Building Codes is just as hard for Gentle, Good, Politically Correct 
Envrionmentalists as it is for Arrogant, Ugly Tower Builders. Not worth 
the trouble; detracts from hot tub time. However, in today's America, it 
is very easy to mandate Big, Expensive Environmental Impact Studies. 
Regulatory Authorities just love Big, Expensive Environmental Impact 
Studies because they can pass along the cost to the Despicable 
Petitioners who had the termerity to propose actually building something 
whereas the Authorities just want to get on to their Coffee Break. And 
Big, Expensive Environmental Impact Studies are among the best forms of 
evidence to the Public that the Authorities are Doing Something. And 
when Authorities Do Something, all is right with the world and we can 
snuggle into our jammies and sleep soundly, knowing, in this case, that 
eventually the request to erect a Big Ugly, Industrial Looking Tower in 
My Neighborhood ... I mean, in the Birdies Environment ... will be 
denied and eventually the Arrogant, Ugly Tower Builders will go away and 
build their Big Ugly, Industrial Looking Towers in Someone Else's Back 
Yard. And that will be good.

Got it?

73,

/Rick N6XI

P.S. I really do respect the environment and want to protect it within 
reason. But often our efforts to do so get out of hand. Advocacy in 
America today is so aggressive, one-sided and blind to other points of 
view that the art of compromise is all but lost.

K4BEV at aol.com wrote:

>Are the birds crashing into the towers, or being fried by the Mega Watt 
>signals?
>Or maybe the big RF screws their nav systems up enough that they crash.
> 
>Birds love my tower.
>Early every spring the TH-7 becomes a Humming Bird perch and is covered with 
>the little dudes. There is almost always at least one, of one kind or the 
>other, of the feathered mess makers up there. Not 1 dead bird in the yard though.
>
>There's bound to be something else going on here. How about hetrodynes?
>
>73, Don - K4BEV
>