As part of preparing the home I inherited in Pennsylvania when my mom died, I have begun relocating radio gear from the condo in New Jersey. Over this weekend, my son and I began disassembling the antenna array which has been on the condo roof for more than twenty years. Got an interesting surprise . . .
Because we live in a condo, we could not mount the antenna tower into the roof or into the parapet that encloses the roof. We had to use a short, 8 foot, tower, with each of its four base mounts lag-bolted into railroad ties. Then sand bags got laid on the railroad ties and between the weight and length of the railroad ties, and the sand bags atop them, they held the antenna tower vertical for about twenty years.
As we disassembled the tower and array, we removed the sand bags and leaned the tower horizontal, disconnected the twenty-eight foot tall CB/10 Meter antenna from its mast. No trouble there. Then we removed the VHF/UHF 2 meter/70cm antenna which was mounted to the same mast, but below the tall other antenna. Next we removed the mast from the tower, which left us needing to remove the tower from the railroad ties.
As we unscrewed the eight lag bolts - two per leg (times four legs) - that hold the tower to the railroad ties, all but two of the lag bolts SNAPPED.
The two which did not snap are shown above - rusted away to an amazing degree.
In the image above, you can see that more than fifty percent of the THREADS are just . . . gone. Rusted away inside the railroad ties. Their ability to "grip" and keep the antenna secure, is all but gone.
Thank goodness we did this now, before some terrible storm (or worse) hits and simply lifted the antenna tower up out of the railroad ties! The bolts clearly could no longer hold it in!
I've never seen something like this. These were galvanized lag bolts! This isn't supposed to happen!
Antenna set-ups are usually good forever. This was a big surprise.
I post this for all of you who are radio operators, especially Police, Fire, and EMS departments who have antenna towers (of any type) or antennas mounted on your roof. Whether it is CB, HAM, or Public Safety radio systems check the mount and check the bolts on the tower and on the antennas.
It's something we all take for granted. The radios are just "there." They've just always been there. And they just "work." They've always worked . . . until they don't!
You could end up like me with bolts that are almost useless, and you won't find out until a disaster strikes, taking out your radio gear.
With all the troubles going on in the world right now, and the likely need for radio communications when the "grid" goes down, the last thing you want is your antenna system to fail and make all your communications "preps" useless.
Word to the wise . . .
