Wow, what a pleasant surprise to get a quick note from John, LA7GNA. asking me to “keep writing,” which, for any or all writers, is always a delight. Once again, it’s humbling to hear from readers throughout the world; it really is. Of course, that’s one of the true highlights of ham radio in the first place–its International reach. The Internet easily equals that spread, albeit with none of the romance and ritual associated with a single ham, alone with his radio, communicating with another such individual, anywhere on the globe….
But I digress…what’s been going on the the tower work world? Sadly, damned little, mostly because the weather hereabouts has been dreadful. Continued rain, temps failing into the 20s, clients cancelling, and assorted other fanciful follies have kept me (us) here at home the past couple weeks. I did go to MD, for both the ARRL DX Tests, where I operated with the W3LPL M-M team. 2nd place finishes in the US to K3LR both times. But Tim has spent considerably more building his station than Frank, and continues to populate his operating positions with some of the very best operators from here and abroad. So it goes…
Managed some simple repair work and site surveys for up-coming projects while in MD. The most interesting of which will be the structural repairs to the W3EAX club station at the University of Maryland. I submitted a proposal to replace their broken mast and it was approved in less than two weeks–pretty amazing return considering I recall it taking forever to reach decisions when I worked there years ago as Director of Video Production in RTVF! Their mast is bent over about 90-degrees, so its removal is going to be dangerously interesting. Spent some time delivering new K0XG rotating tower hardware to WK3W’s new station, plus laying out tower locations this past week. Rob is going to be building a very fine station, indeed; construction will hopefully begin this spring.
I had delivered a variety of materials to my local fabrication shop, which I picked up today. As usual, all very nice work, at very reasonable prices. There’s no comparison to local, small shops, who will do small jobs and treat you like a large scale customer. C&B Welding in Kings Mountain, NC…truly a great resource for me. I picked up the elevated guy posts for one of my Florida clients, as well as a weld repair to a 45G top for a VA client, and the aluminum guy brackets for my very own 160M vertical radiator. I’ll be delivering most guy posts to be welded to them next week, plus picking up the top plate I’ve fabricated for WK3W’s Rohn SSV tower.
The Charlotte Hamfest is this weekend. I’ll hopefully be selling off the remaining items from the W2YV estate, plus older SK things still stuck in the storage shed. I need the room! Then it’ll be time to actually GO down to Florida, and after that, hopefully all the snow and winter weather out in the mid-West will have calmed enough to allow me to go to Missouri, where old pal AI0O has been awaiting the tuning network for his vertical since forever. In the interim, we need to finish repairs to N4VLQ and I have to dash to Aiken and tighten down N2ZZ’s SteppIR….
stay tuned….and tnx agn John~! vy 73
