Hi Phil

Some 20 or so years ago when I built a home brew tower, all the work was
done at night, including drilling the half inch holes into the brick work.
I did this because of the nosy neighbours being about during the day.
Having finished the project, raised the th5 to 50 feet, it was over a year
before anyone even commented on it!

73

David W Wood 

-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Phil Scovell
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2014 1:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: One good thing a blind ham can do

Living in Omaha as a teenager, during the hot summer days, I used to have to

wait until midnight for the roof to cool down because the shingles were just

burning, even through your shoes, during the day.  I had a little 3 element 
TH3 Junior tri bander on an 8 foot tripod and a 5 foot mast so if I were 
lucky, the little beam was 28 feet off the ground.  Trees in the yard were 
higher but that, I figured, was good for lightning protection, haha.  I was 
using the A R22 rotor.  I was doing something with the RG8 coax so I 
disconnected it from the beam after stepping up two step brackets of the 
tripod.  I sat down on the still, quite warm, roof and began working on the 
connector.  My coax snaked down over the edge of the roof, passed my 
mother's bedroom window, and down through a basement window into my shack. 
I learned my lesson that night to wrap the coax around my waist, or around 
one leg at least once, so the coax wouldn't get away from me.  You know how 
heavy RG8 gets after 50 feet or 100 feet.  Anyhow, the coax slipped from my 
hands and went sliding away down the roof and coiled in the grass between 
houses.  No, I might be blind but I wasn't about to dive head first right 
after the sliding coax in case I did a header off the roof.  I said, "Oh, 
shoot," or something like that, haha, because now I would have to find the 
ladder, climb down, hunt around for the coax in the grass, thread it back up

to the roof, re-climb the ladder, and another hour would  be lost.  Before I

could start my trek off the roof, I heard a side window slide up and my 
mother's voice from within the air conditioned house saying, "Philip!  Is 
that you on the roof?"  I sighed and said, "Yes, it is me, mom."  "What are 
you doing at this time of night on the roof?" she wanted to know.  "You are 
going to wake the neighbors.  Still mad at myself for letting the coax slide

away, I calmly said, "I'm trying to fix my coax."  She insisted I get down 
and right now.  She didn't care I was on the roof, I did it all the time, 
but she was trying to go to sleep so she could go to work the next day.  I 
didn't tell her I had to climb down and climb back up again but I was much 
quieter the next time.  So blind guys, if they are young enough and skinny 
enough, can work on their towers and antennas in the dark; at least I always

did.  Shoot, I remember climbing my 65 foot tower to fix a burned out relay 
on Christmas day here in Denver when it had just snowed the night before 25 
inches.  Only time I ever used gloves climbing a tower but I took them off 
as I worked on the relay and coax feeding it and it was 3:30 PM and the son 
was behind the mountains.  Fortunately there was no wind but it was 32 
degrees so I was careful, tempted maybe, but careful not to touch my tongue 
to the tower, smile.  My kids were all pretty little so they played in the 
snow while old crazy dad was 65 feet in the air freezing his butt off.  No, 
silly.  I made them play a long way off from the base of the tower.  It was 
a standing safety rule because I was always dropping at least one bolt.  You

know what a single bolt on the head can do to your skull from 65 feet?

Phil.
K0NX