I have a ham friend that many of you likely have heard on 160 meters or 75 
meters D X ing all over the world with a big signal.  Although, come to 
think of it, I haven't heard him for awhile.  At any rate, we were friends 
from day one of our general exams back in Nebraska.  After I moved out to 
Colorado, Bill stayed in his home town of Lincoln Nebraska and soon became 
the chief engineer of a popular local broadcast station.  Bill Got into 
multiple element vertical arrays on 75 meters and once upon a time, had I 
believe 5 vertical elements up on that band.  He eventually moved out into 
the country, bought a farm house and some land around it, and began running, 
besides the vertical arrays on 80, more vertical arrays on 160 meters with 
long 1600 foot beverages in order to tune out noise and to copy better.  He 
worked stuff on both bands I never could copy.  I've heard him run a pile up 
of Europeans on 160 meter side band before.  Well, when he lived back in 
town, he was working on his vertical 80 meter array one day.  He lived on 
the city limits but didn't have a very big lot to work with.  He had 4 
elements up and was putting up a fifth vertical element.  He was man 
handling the 40 foot telescoping pole by himself, something else one should 
not do under similar circumstances, and he was right at the property line 
where there was a fence.  He lost control of the balance of the pole and it 
leaned over the property and came in contact with a 17,500 volt line.  Of 
course, you know that such high voltages become magnetic upon contact and so 
his two hands became glued to the base of the pole.  He jerked and jerked 
and fought with all his strength, pulling backwards, to try and free 
himself.  You only get a very short period of time before it is too late, 
but as luck would have it, the other end of the vertical was only an inch, 
or less, of hollow tubing and it was that part which was resting on the high 
voltage line.  It melted through the thin walled tubing and the vertical 
pole fell away from the power lines; thus breaking the contact.  Bill said 
he was jerking his hands to free them from the base of the vertical pole so 
violently, that when the current broke, his body flew backwards and flipped 
over.  The pole fell over the fence outside his property.  Not thinking he 
was hurt, he stood up and jumped over the fence, picked up the vertical, and 
tossed it back into his yard.  He then jumped over his fence and when his 
feet hit the ground, he knew he was in trouble.  His shoes head melted into 
the bottoms of his feet.  He walked straight to the back door of his house, 
picked up his car keys, and drove to the nearest hospital.  He was in the 
hospital for a week and for awhile, they didn't think he would make it.  You 
would think a chief engineer of a radio station would know better but it can 
happen to anyone so quickly and so easily so it pays big time to be extra 
super careful.

Phil.
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