Posted 6/27/06
On Thursday, June 22, 2006 and Wednesday, June 21, 2006 the IOOK Tower Team consisting of N8KXM, KA8ZBW, WB8WIQ and WA8ZWJ took down Linda, WD8BYX's tower. The tower had been erected 35 or more years ago by Dale, WA8EEA. Linda and Dale collected and organized the "History Of The IOOK - the first 10 years" and placed it into book form and Linda presented the collection to the IOOK at the "Gathering Of The Faithful" fifteen years ago. Linda is preparing to sell the house and needed the old tower to be removed. Upon our arrival at Linda's we were surprised by the large number of antennas and weather equipment that had been mounted on the tower over the years. What we had planned to do in one day quickly shaped up to be a two day job for the team.
The tower had two 220 MHz. Beams, two 440 MHz Beams, a 2 Meter Isopole, an eleven element 2 Meter beam, a tri-band HF beam, a 440 MHz. Ringo Ranger, a 40 Meter dipole, an 80 Meter dipole and an assortment of weather collection devices.
The day turned out to be hot and steamy although it was beautiful! We all soaked our clothes through with sweat. As you can see in one of the above photos, Lou, N8KXM, who was the top man sweat himself down to nearly nothing!
We did have a minor casualty during the first day's climb. Lou managed to smack himself in the lip with a side arm as it broke free and drew a rather profuse amount of blood! Thank goodness no stitches were required.
A garbage can full of trashed articles was placed by the road in front of the house and Linda mentioned that before the day was through someone had loaded the trash into their vehicle and left the empty can!
Linda treated the crew to a late lunch at the Maid-Rite in Greenville! What a delight!
The following week, the group reassembled to finish the job. The crew this day consisted of N8KXM, KA8ZBW and WA8ZWJ. The weather was overcast and it even tried to rain a couple of times. Since the tower was very old and the bolts and tower sections were thoroughly rusted, it was decided to saw the sections apart with a sawsall.
Towards the end of the project fatigue obviously set in and the crew had trouble getting the mast through the yard to the trailer to be removed.
In effort to regain lost strength, the crew again visited the Maid-Rite for lunch vittles. As Big Al would say, we got all fed up!
Linda thanked the crew for all their efforts and greatly appreciates the fact that the tower is down!
