Wind damage............

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67Dart273

67Dart273

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Just got off the phone with a buddy in Spokane, who had borrowed my front end alignment tools. The last windstorm in Spokaloo took down his crank-up amateur radio tower. The current cost on one of these.........just the tower, never mind the labor, the antenna, and yards of concrete for the base or labor, is over 4000 bucks. He "may" have insurance to cover it, I guess they are not sure yet

Guess he's lucky, tho.......didn't hit the house!!! Or the neighbors
 

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I guess I'm stupid cause it looks like it's still standing to me.
 
Uh, those are photos cropped off Google "street view." The wreckage has been cleaned up, so, not much to see.

If you had to completely replace that new, with the antenna, rotator, and pay a crew to install it, and the concrete bolts were destroyed, so some amount of 'redo' there, I daresay you are looking at 15-20K altogether.
 
He should just do it like us rednecks and stick it 100 feet up in a pine tree.
 
Those towers are pretty heavy items as I recall. When cranked down my dad could tilt the top over 90° to work on his "beam" or his "new beam" or his "needed modifications/repairs". (lol)
I hauled concrete for him (N9CQO by the way) a couple times when he was making the base for his crank up. You could get half yard (?) trailers of mixed concrete at Builders Supply in Aurora then. Took several trips to fill that hole!
 
Daves69 said:
Those towers are pretty heavy items as I recall. !
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They are HEAVY. These are way heavier than a typical guyed tower. I would never want one though. Crank-up towers have their own problems, with safety and the crank up/ down mechanism. If it gets stuck? You are in trouble. There are people who've climbed these and regretted it.

Daves69 said:
You could get half yard (?) trailers of mixed concrete at Builders Supply in Aurora then. Took several trips to fill that hole!
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This would be far worse, if he has to break up much of what is there. He said the bolts were bent, that is not good. Jackhammer. Work. Not in my present condition, LOL
 
There was some damage out here. If you look at a Spokane map look for Francis off of Division. Follow it out of town til about 3 miles form the end and that is where I am. No damage that I seen in my 'hood, but on 291 there was a tree here & there.
Was at Ernie's quilting clubs show yesterday. Was talking to a woman that leaves by Dear Park. She does not have phone or internet service yet. Another woman that lives in the area is still powerless....
 
Lotsa power oy last night. I know the mill site in Priest River was down for a while. My trees were bending quite a bit in the wind.
 
inkjunkie said:
There was some damage out here. If you look at a Spokane map look for Francis off of Division. Follow it out of town til about 3 miles form the end and that is where I am. No damage that I seen in my 'hood, but on 291 there was a tree here & there.
Was at Ernie's quilting clubs show yesterday. Was talking to a woman that leaves by Dear Park. She does not have phone or internet service yet. Another woman that lives in the area is still powerless....
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Yup. My bud that lost his tower lives up by the VA hospital. Somewhere "in that area" is the mobile home park that got a bunch of damage..........big trees and limbs falling on trailer homes
 
67Dart273 said:
Yup. My bud that lost his tower lives up by the VA hospital. Somewhere "in that area" is the mobile home park that got a bunch of damage..........big trees and limbs falling on trailer homes
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The one that the news has shown the residents beating on each other??
 
In a situation like this would a military surplus crank tower be a viable option? A former pastor of mine was a ham radio enthusiast. He bought his crank tower for a helluva lot less, and because it was made to be portable there was no anchoring to the ground (some sort of splayed feet stand, if I recall correctly).

Easily taken down if a threat of high wind, movable from one charge to the next since the church would rotate pastors every couple of years.

Just askin' since what he told me was about the only thing I know about ham.
 
I have no idea (neither does he) what he's going to do yet. One huge problem for both of us, unrelated to the wind, is the terrible increase in the RF noise floor in the past decade or so. Part of this is the FCC's insistance on pushing that stupid BPL, which was flawed technology from the start.

BPL ---wide band internet over power lines--- is a little like trying to run a 6 second drag car on F70x14 Polyglas. "It juz don' work." But because of the politics of the FCC (and other regulatory bodies) in the last 20 years or so, technically correct and "whut they do" are often quite different.

The upshot? For both him and I, operation on the lower frequency bands has become nearly impossible. 160 meters, (about 1.8 mhz) is nearly impossible on all but rare, odd nights.

So, he might be just erecting a cheaper mast for a simple wire antenna. Not sure, at this point, and neither is he.
 
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