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Fatal West Virginia Tower Collapse Takes Out Ham Radio Repeaters

A

ARRL

Well-Known Member
Nov 15, 2008
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The collapse of two radio towers in North-Central West Virginia on February 1 resulted in three deaths and injuries to two individuals. The tragedy also resulted in the loss of three Amateur Radio repeaters belonging to the Stonewall Jackson Amateur Radio Association (SJARA) and forming part of the HamTalk linked repeater system, which were available to assist with emergency and disaster commun...





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Man that's some bad news. Condolences to the families. I just left working in that area about 2 months ago, hope it's not anyone I know.
 
North Texas Mudduck said:
how did it hurt the repeaters???
were the repeaters mounted to the tower
Click to expand...

You must have missed it.


“The towers are an important link in maintaining cell service and repeaters for several commercial companies locally,” Wilt said. “The towers also were in use by the Amateur Radio community with three repeaters located on the towers. These Amateur repeaters are a major part of the North-Central West Virginia emergency communications to assist the Office of Emergency Management of Harrison County, FEMA, and the American Red Cross.”

Towers work better vertically than horizontally. ;)
 
I can tell you what is happening , there are a lot of companies that hire guys that have never climbed a tower, send them to a 2 day rescue training and send them off to climbing towers. What happens then is you have guys that really know nothing about tower safety like they should, which in turn creates a unsafe situation. Unfortunately the turn over rate for tower climbers is very high as well and it has created an unsafe environment for the industry. It's a sad case, but fact is over 10 people a year die from tower accidents and it's seems these past few years have been well over that.
 
They were removing and replacing structural components of the tower to upgrade the integrity of it. Apparently either too much was removed or no temporary braces installed whlle removing some before replacement.
 
You can't preach safety enough when it comes to tower work. I am fortunately a ground tech, but when trouble shooting, I have a climber, and let me say, after doing being in the industry for 15 years, I haven't the slightest desire to climb. It's not easy and I have watch a many of men quit. Guys that thought they were in shape lol. But anyway it truly is tragic that this happened and it will serve as a reminder to the next crew to be that much more safe.
 
Captain Kilowatt said:
You must have missed it.


“The towers are an important link in maintaining cell service and repeaters for several commercial companies locally,” Wilt said. “The towers also were in use by the Amateur Radio community with three repeaters located on the towers. These Amateur repeaters are a major part of the North-Central West Virginia emergency communications to assist the Office of Emergency Management of Harrison County, FEMA, and the American Red Cross.”

Towers work better vertically than horizontally. ;)
Click to expand...

That why I asked the Question
were the repeaters Actually mounted to the towers that fell
Reason is :: you here most people say
oh we have a repeater on that tower..
but actually theres not a repeater mounted to the tower.

You are not kidding them towers are no joke
the last two that I climbed one was a 180 foot and the other was a 400 footer
on the 400 footer i only went to the first blinking light
I hate climbing towers when you look up an see clouds moving over
 

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