While I’ve been dealing with the “shortness of breath” issue (numerous doctor visits, hospital trips, et cetera, all to no avail), I’ve still tried to keep working. Often with smaller projects or ones which did not or do not require extensive climbing. Such was the situation recently over in Leechburg, PA, where the job was the takedown of KB3QGB’s Father’s old Rohn 25G tower.
The 60-footer had been installed nearly 30 years ago, and unfortunately, not according to Rohn specs, to say the least. First, it was guyed with rope, and only one set, and those were all running to trees! Not good, in a word. So it was not surprising to learn the tower had folded at the base and slammed itself in to trees in John’s backyard. No amount of tugging or pulling had any effect. Since John had an ATV, I decided to cut the tower at the base, and then pull the tower out and away, figuring it was basically a long lever at this point, and maybe we’d get lucky. We did. Once away from the base, I lifted the tower and we slid a piece of plywood under the end & we then proceeded to pull straightaway. The tower slammed to the ground. So we did not need mechanized help after all–I’d been afraid I’d have to go up and cut things apart and likely remove some branches, too, etc.
But everything was cut apart, stored on the trailer, ready for its final resting place in the local scrapyard within four hours. A long way to go for a few hours work, but we laid out new elevated guy post locations, and came up with some suitable antennas for replacement, as well.
stay tuned…
