Dumb Things Blind Hams Do



As a teenager going to high-school, I lived at home with my parents in a two story house. One end of my dipole was attached to a 50 foot telephone pole on the back corner of our lot. The other end was attached to a TV mast on top of the two story house. 



In order to put my antenna up after it had fallen down because of the wind, Several times in the middle of a rain storm with lots of wind, I’d climb the 50 foot telephone pole without a belt, just using the spikes that were driven into the pole. 



A couple times when I needed to re-attach my dipole to the TV mast I did the following:



We had a two story ladder. I’d climb it pulling a folding ladder up behind me. I’d then crawl up to the peak of the roof. Put the legs of the folding ladder on either side of the peak of the roof, next to the TV mast. 



Then I’d climb up to the top of the ladder holding onto the TV mast. Then I’d shimmy up the TV mast as far as I could and attach the guy for the dipole. 



I was 16 years old and had no idea that at any time one of the guys for the TV mast could have broken, sending me, the ladder and the mast off of the 2-story house.



When I think of it now, it makes me shutter. 



Like the time my friends and I decided to use a row boat that we had been given and fixed up, to shoot the rapids on the American River near Sacramento CA. We made it about ½ mile and at about 30 miles per hour, slammed into a downed tree and ripped a hole a foot wide in the boat. We lost most everything in the boat, lost the boat and had to swim for our lives. Yipes, shuttering again. 



-Bob Ringwald K6YBV






Bob Ringwald
Amateur (ham) Radio Station K 6 Y B V
Fulton Street Jazz Band
916/ 806-9551

If God wanted me to touch my toes, he'd have put them on my knees.