The day started smoothly enough. Local rental company (RSC) dropped off the 65-ft manlift @7AM, just as promised. I was at the jobsite by 8. Started right up & I moved it into position & had one 2M Yagi & the pair of 432 Yagis off one side of the H-frame by 8:30. Life was good. Then I reached out & turned the key to re-start the lift & come to earth. Nothing. Zip, zilch, zero…thinking it was operator error (this was, after all, a new JLG manlift–one I’d never run before), I managed to get the beams out of the way & tried again. Still nothing. Hmmmmmm…not wishing to spend the rest of the day up there, I called the rental house. Luckily, their repair guy was on another job literally just down the street. They called him & he called me. We ran through the start-up procedure.
I was correct on all steps. But still nothing. So…the repair guy talked me through the emergency lowering procedure & I eased on down to the ground. He showed up in about an hour, took one quick look, & assured me the lift was broken. He then got out his Fluke & discovered a dead short in the solenoid circuit. He spent another hour going over basically every wire/cable from the battery to the tip of the boom. He finally found a short at the boom transition point–right at the man-basket, where all the cables are bundled. He moved all the cables carefully & then simply tie-wrapped them so that the short was gone. Field expedient repair. We both laughed. But he assured me I could get back down using the emergency procedure again, if needed. Managed to finish the job, albeit two hours later than I had thought. Without further incident.
Like Rosanne Rosanna Danna used to say: “It’s always sumpin….~!”
Shelby Hamfest this weekend.
stay tuned
