[UK-CONTEST] SSB FD G3RCV/P

[Dave Lawley]

Not Cray Valley's best weekend.

We hired a Honda generator which turned out to be giving only 208 volts, 
but I got lucky and chose the correct pot to adjust on the voltage 
regulator, and it produced a nice 230v.

Worse was to come. At 1am in the morning the site owner turned up blind 
drunk, which was a nuisance but we coped, up until the moment he drove 
his Land Rover into the middle and top guys of the tower. The shock bent 
the top of the lower section. The tower was supporting a pair of 2m 
yagis as well as the Gravesend loop antenna for SSB FD.

There was no way it was going to telescope back down, but the antennas 
were undamaged so we carried on. In the morning I put a plan together to 
get the tower down using 16ft of steel scaffold as a gin pole. Imagine, 
a lattice tower a bit lighter than a Strumech, but fully extended to 
60ft with two 2m yagis on top.

We got help from two mates from the G0FBB team and QRTd two hours early 
(3 hours for 2m) and got it down using the gin pole and block and 
tackle. The side guys went very tight at one point but we managed to let 
them out enough to get the tower down safely. The guys were 6mm polyprop 
from Screwfix - can't have been far off their limit!

So yes you can get a 60ft lattice tower down with a 16ft gin pole but I 
really don't recommend it. We won't be using that site again and we plan 
to light the guy points in future but how can you protect against a 
drunk visitor in the middle of the night?

Dave G4BUO