I mentioned that we lost the top third of our FM antenna during Celia. Actually, the antenna only had minor damage; it was the tower it hung on that was damaged.
The top of the Driscoll Hotel wasn't large enough to support a tower with guy wires headed out at a typical 30° angle, so we had what was known as a self-guyed mast. It used a heavy steel base plate and guy wires that headed out from it to cross-members about halfway up the mast and back to the mast about two thirds of the way to the top. The mast had snapped just above where the guy wires connected, and two of the four guy wires had come off of the cross-members.
Once power was back on at the Driscoll, I went up on the tower to assess the damage. Meanwhile, several floors below, our sales manager - Jim was also one of the station owners, a good guy and a great announcer who didn't know a damn thing about the technical side of radio broadcasting - took it upon himself to turn the transmitter on.
Normally, with a properly balanced antenna, this wouldn't have mattered. In this case, I started smelling something hot and quickly got back down to the roof. What I was smelling was my belt buckle - it got hot enough to brand my belt.
I have one more story about the KTOD tower, but I think I'll save it for tomorrow.
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