Beta 8.10 released

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 12 October 2008, Billie Walsh wrote:
>Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Sunday 12 October 2008, Billie Walsh wrote:
>>> Lisi Reisz wrote:
>>>> On Sunday 12 October 2008 00:31:47 Gene Heskett wrote:
>>>>>> Incidently, my local LUG currently has a membership ranging in age
>>>>>> from 14 to 76.  (So far as we know.  There may, of course, be the odd
>>>>>> closet 9 year old or 85 year old. ;-)  )  Why do groups of people need
>>>>>> to be all the same age for people to "belong"??
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Lisi
>>>>>
>>>>> They don't Lisi, and that's the point.
>>>>
>>>> Yes - that is the point I was making.  Willy had said that he felt he
>>>> didn't belong because you and I are so ancient.
>>>>
>>>> Lisi
>>>
>>> Willy should enjoy it now. Youth is way to short.
>>>
>>> Age is mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter.
>>>
>>> A friend of mine say it's not the age that matters it's the mileage. I'm
>>> one owner high mileage.
>>>
>>> I'm like an old broke down horse. Been rode hard and put away wet.
>>>
>>> The object is not to arrive at the pearly gates in perfect, pristine,
>>> condition. The object is to slide in head first, broke down, burned out,
>>> used up, and screaming "Man what a ride!"
>>
>> You have it precisely, Billy. >
>>
>>> You know, it's funny. I don't really feel old in my head [ does that
>>> make any sense at all ]. I mean my body is "old" and not able to do as
>>> many things as it used to but my brain keeps saying "you can do it" but
>>> the body says "not on your nelly". And when my brain does talk my body
>>> into doing something I pay for it for three or four days afterwards.
>>
>> Boy do I know that one!  But I keep trying anyway.  It does help keep me
>> out of the bars.  But the resultant aches & pains can sure screw up what
>> should be a good nights sleep when you are certifiably tired.
>
>Gotta love those Loritabs.
>
>> ATM I'm building a woodworkers workbench, one intended to stay put when I
>> clamp a piece of cherry to it and lay into it with a Bailey #7 jointer
>> plane, which will leave that cherry optically flat IF the supporting bench
>> is good. If its not solid, and allows the wood to move, then all bets are
>> off and the piece is likely ruined.  You don't want to ruin too much of it
>> at $16 a bd/ft.
>
>I've got a sixty eight foot Rohn 25 tower and another 50 footer to put
>up. We just got through dumping 7 eighty pound bags of concrete into the
>hole for the big one [ I'll pay for that tomorrow ]. That will cure for
>a few days while we get anchor posts set and ready for both. I have
>twenty feet of the big one up and will have to climb and set the other
>sections one by one. We can hinge the smaller one and put up thirty feet
>in one go but that still leaves two sections to have to climb up and
>set.. Then I get the fun of climbing up and setting all the antennas.
>Four or five hours of climbing the tower and I'm half crippled up for a
>couple days.
>
>Wanna trade jobs?

Been there, done that several times.

I am a semi-retired Chief Engineer, a J.O.A.T. at times.

Last time up was in a 50-55 mph wind, a lazy tower crew had not tightened 
the 'gate cap' bolts on 450 feet (twice, 2 lines) of 3.125" rigid coax 
transmission line.  Predictably, when the wind came up, we started picking up 
small bolts & nuts and a few of these caps on the ground under the tower.  In 
the meantime I had around 300 feet of both runs loose and blowing in the 
wind, banging around on the tower hard enough to wake the dead.  I grabbed my 
belt, a bag, stuffed some wrenches in it along with all the hardware I could 
pick up off the ground, and started up, after yelling at a friend that 
claimed he liked to climb to come and give me a hand.  Wrapping an arm around 
the flailing line, I managed to coral the line long enough to get a bolt into 
one side of the cap, then pull the line in and swing the cap closed & put the 
other sides bolt in.  This was every 10 feet as I climbed the tower in that 
wind.  I had made it to about the 180 foot mark and was plumb tuckered out by 
the time my friend drove up.  Then he screwed around for a good half an hour 
before he stuck a foot into the ladder.  I kept going, but was beginning to 
see I wasn't going to have enough bolts & caps, but by the 220 foot mark when 
my friend arrived at my level, I had the lines in a much safer lockdown than 
when I started.  When my friend arrived and we were talking, a particularly 
bad gust, probably 70 mph hit us and he froze to the tower.  His harness was 
better than mine, but I was hooked in, so even if it blew me loose I wouldn't 
have fallen more than a foot.

But that sent a message I was willing to listen to, so when he said lets get 
off of this thing, I agreed.  But I thought I was gonna have to cut his 
fingers off to get him back down the tower.  White and bloodless, they just 
plain didn't wanna let go and reach for the next rung down until I threatened 
to leave him hanging there.  But we did get back down ok.  And I sat there 
waiting for the tower crew who did that sloppy job, whom I had called at 
about 6 am when I found the situation, to arrive and do it right.  In the 
meantime the wind died down to the 20's, and when the tower crew arrived, it 
turned out to be his daughter & she was half dead from a cold.  By then it 
was also dark and I was still hot & upset, so she grabbed the spares she had 
and went back up to do it right.  I had threatened them with a lawsuit if we 
got knocked off the air, and it would have included all lost revenues in 
addition to all damages.

That's not all they did, they quit at dark one night while doing the job they 
were contracted to do, and left the top of the lines open at the towers top.  
And it rained about 3" that night.  We had 4 major burnouts before we finally 
found that water, and we had to find it ourselves, they had been there and 
looked at it the first 3 times.  Incompetent bunch of jerks.

Needless to say, that tower service company has been personna non grata ever 
since.  They've even stopped calling to see if we need a paint job or ??

So yes, you could say I've been there and done that.  And I could have used 
some real help.  63 years old (then) coots like me don't really have any 
business crawling around on 'high steel':)

>I SURE wish I was Willy's age again.

Me too, but I think I'd do a couple of things differently next time around.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Mal: "No one's gonna hurt you... any more than we already did."
				--Episode #3, "Bushwacked"