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Mowing accident causes a Missouri station's radio tower to collapse

S

Siouxzanne

Mowing accident causes a Missouri station's radio tower to collapse

Picture a person on a large riding mower cutting hay near a broadcast tower. That mower then inadvertently clips a guy wire holding up a very large broadcast tower, dragging the wire and causing enough tension to bring down the entire 360-foot tower. That’s what happened to St. Joseph, Missouri’s KFEQ-AM (680). Station GM Gary Exline tells Radio-Info, “It was tower 4 of a four-tower radio array for KFEQ, originally built in the 1940’s, out on a big field. Fortunately nobody got hurt, but this will affect our signal strength at night.” Exline says the station, one of four owned by Eagle Communications in the market, sent an emergency request to the FCC to operate at night at reduced power. “Daytime power and direction were not affected,” says Exline, who adds the other three towers in the array are okay.
 
Most of the tower sites I've seen or been involved with have the ends of the guy wires fenced in. I guess that this one did not which is curious. What is also interesting is that this tower more or less folded down upon itself like the KFI tower did when one of the guy wires was clipped by an airplane near the top. Basically it looks like losing only one wire lets the others pull it straight down more or less uniformly.

Good news for KFEQ is that they will not have a 2 year fight with NIMBYs to get their replacement antenna constructed.
 
Leafygreen said:
nmoore6676 said:
Most of the tower sites I've seen or been involved with have the ends of the guy wires fenced in.
Click to expand...

I would say the opposite. Maybe in larger metros, but not in the sticks.
Click to expand...

Might not be required though maybe something to look at making a legal requirement. I have seen, worked at or visited a number of sites, many being rural, and they were all so fenced. As a small kid I recall when WTTV-4, Bloomington/Indianapolis, constructed a new tower on the way to my Grandmother's house near Morgantown, Indiana. There were always fenced in enclosures where the anchors were located in the fields surrounding the tower.

Maybe some others can share their observations, like Scott Fybush who has to be the most traveled of us all.
 
Who, me? ;)

The short answer is, "it depends."

It's more common to see fenced-in guy anchors on taller towers, especially since the anchors are bigger and there's a lot more at stake if the guy wires get hit. On shorter towers, a lot depends on what the surrounding land is used for - if it's being actively farmed (as KFEQ's field was), it's good engineering practice to provide some sort of protection to the guy anchors to avoid an incident like this. That goes double if the land is being used for grazing - ruminant animals apparently really, really like to rub up against guy anchors, sometimes with most unfortunate results.

But...a lot of radio station owners don't want to spend any money they don't have to spend, and the cost of fencing in or elevating a guy anchor is one of those "we can skip it" items, too much of the time...until something like this happens!
 
Did someone take some "writers liberty" in composing the opening post of this thread? I can't ever remember seeing a guy-wire of a tower anchored in such a way that I thought a "riding lawnmower" could take it down, even if that is that you WANTED to do.

The "industrial grade" versions of a farm tractor with a 'belly-mounted' mower, or even a rear mounted Bush Hog type device might do the job. But a riding lawnmower?

Does anyone have a later report that more fully defines the offending machine and how it went about destroying this tower guy-wire?

(I've done a few disastrous things in my lifetime with a farm tractor. I'm trying to think what would be my plan of attack if I had criminal intent and wanted to bring a tower down!)
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Did someone take some "writers liberty" in composing the opening post of this thread? I can't ever remember seeing a guy-wire of a tower anchored in such a way that I thought a "riding lawnmower" could take it down, even if that is that you WANTED to do.

The "industrial grade" versions of a farm tractor with a 'belly-mounted' mower, or even a rear mounted Bush Hog type device might do the job. But a riding lawnmower?

Does anyone have a later report that more fully defines the offending machine and how it went about destroying this tower guy-wire?

(I've done a few disastrous things in my lifetime with a farm tractor. I'm trying to think what would be my plan of attack if I had criminal intent and wanted to bring a tower down!)
Click to expand...

Don't look at me -- I just copied and pasted the article from Radio-Info's news section. I may not be an engineer, but even I know that a regular lawn mower shouldn't be able to cut through a guy wire.
 
I believe it was a haybine (hay mower-conditioner) that snagged the guy wire. Haybines can vary greatly in size depending on how much hay you need cut and dried. They're usually pulled behind and to the sides of tractors.
 
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