VE6EMU
2M & 6M
Beacon Tower
May 3, 2009

Left - The VE6EMU tower in 1997.

Below - The tower the day after it collapsed in the early hours of January 30th, 2009, during a wind storm.

The following images were taken on May 3, 2009, while helping Barry, VA6DX, repair the tower. (He's the one on the tower doing most of the work while I took photos.) Luckily, the antennas and feed lines weren't damaged and only two sections of the tower needed to be replaced which meant removing the antennas and tower sections above the damage (which were now actually below the damage), then replacing the damaged sections with new ones and then reinstalling the upper sections, antennas and feed lines.

Top Section & the Antennas on the ground

The two damaged sections
with one of the undamaged ones in the background.

After 7 hours the 2M antenna was back up followed by the 6M antenna a while later which I missed getting a photo of.

This was originally a 96 ft tower and the original two top sections had those 'squeeze supports' to help strengthen the top and make it easier to stand on while working at the top. But the two top sections were not reinstalled making this now an 80 ft. tower as these 96 footers have a bad habit of folding over in high wind gusts when not guyed and there wasn't good spots on the ground for guy wires at this site.