[TowerTalk] CC&R's

[Tom Anderson]

When I put up my first tower (40 ft. of Rohn 25) in another neighborhood from where we live now, back in the 1980s, my neighbors thought it was so "nice" that I was erecting a carillon "bell tower" for the neighborhood and they wanted to know what "melodies" it would play (yes this is really true, I couldn't make something like this up.) 

I had put up 40 ft. of Rohn 25 with a Ham IV rotor on top, but I had to wait a few weeks for my Mosley TA33Jr beam I had ordered to arrive, which I guess they thought the rotor were the "bells". I never laughed in their faces, but when out of sight I couldn't control my laughter.

I did eventually tell them with a straight face what the tower was though and no one objected after I got the TA33JR on the tower.  I was always letting many of my neighbors know when we had a Skywarn callup and the NWS would issue severe storm alerts. I now live in another neighborhood with a Tennadyne T-12 log  periodic on top of a 50 foot crank up and some folks think I watch DX TV, even though I have a small satellite TV dish on the side of the house.  I still let neighbors know when severe weeather threatens and Skywarn puts out an alert. 

A couple of nearby neighbors have complained to me years ago by phone that my tower was cranked up during a thunderstorm and when was I going outside to crank it down.  I told them if they wanted to come over and crank it down during the storm they could, I wasn't crazy enough to go outside with heavy rain falling and lightning flashing all around and crank the tower down.  Yes, all the coax was disconnected.  

One nosy neighbor whose back yard is filled with Live Oak trees, which are growing into the power lines.  I have mine professionally trimmed away from the power lines periodically by a tree trimming company NOT hired by the power company),  said my tower caused her house to get repeatedly hit by lightning (they have one of those metal fireplaces and metal pipe chimney extending past the top of their roof..  I wrote the Polyphaser folks and one of their electrical engineers wrote me a letter (which I forwarded to the neighbor) which said I was in  more danger from their Live Oak trees attracting a strike to my tower than my tower was attracting a strike to their house.  Never heard another word from her.  

Tom, WW5L