Plasawa Hill is Down

[jmfirefighter]

The piers need to be anchored to something. If no ledge, it's a concrete slab that you won't see. When wind it applied to the structure, there is massive amounts of uplift on one side that is why the foundation is way way over engineered even with maximum tower loading. The structure should fail before the foundation. In this case, obviously there is/was a serious problem. Did the freestanding tower take out the smaller guyed tower? It's hard to tell by the pics.

Took out two smaller guyed towers.......

 

[SGTPinecone]

Ya know, I am not an expert, but something tells me a radio tower should be vertical...not horizontal.

 

[GraniteScanner]

I believe you are correct lol

Ya know, I am not an expert, but something tells me a radio tower should be vertical...not horizontal.

 

[cboykonh]

Anyone know status of concord fire kvf642 license shows plauswa hill is used and am wondering status of that?

 

[ecps92]

Re-Read the first Post aka Post #1 that began the entire thread

Anyone know status of concord fire kvf642 license shows plauswa hill is used and am wondering status of that?

 

[cboykonh]

Sorry about that. So much going on. The only other question I have is does this affect the granite state ares net frequencies 146.94 or 147.225?

 

[Citywide173]

The piers need to be anchored to something. If no ledge, it's a concrete slab that you won't see. When wind it applied to the structure, there is massive amounts of uplift on one side that is why the foundation is way way over engineered even with maximum tower loading. The structure should fail before the foundation. In this case, obviously there is/was a serious problem. Did the freestanding tower take out the smaller guyed tower? It's hard to tell by the pics.

That is the entire tower in the photo, not a single leg. There are a lot of these towers that are tapered at both the base and tip out there. The concrete you see in the pic was repotedly below ground prior to the event.

 

[jmfirefighter]

All it takes is for the center of gravity to shift too far over and that's it. If the upwind leg gave out a little and the mass shifted, the foundation on the downwind side was coming out or the leg was breaking. What's impressive is that the steel held onto the foundation, it didn't break off. The other leg's steel tore at the foundation anchor. The soil was SUPER saturated too.

This tower had a lot of 8' and 10' dishes, along with two levels of cell sectors at the top. If the tower was already compromised and/or overloaded, it won't take much to go.

 

[12dbsinad]

That is the entire tower in the photo, not a single leg. There are a lot of these towers that are tapered at both the base and tip out there. The concrete you see in the pic was repotedly below ground prior to the event.

That is just 1 leg of it, it does not have just that single pier. You can see it in the vid that was posted, the other leg tore a heavy steel plate that attaches to the concrete.

 

[jmfirefighter]

Correct, it was a self supporting tower....three legs.

The other two towers were guyed.

 

[gordon115]

Just curious if there are any plans to replace this tower. Pretty obvious deterioration of the Capital Area signal from my locations.

Gordon

 

[jmarcel66]

There are nine or more sites Capital Area uses for their simulcast system. Plausawa is in the middle along with Oak Hill in Loudon. Their eastern most site, Fort Mountain in Epsom was temporarily affected by the towers collapse, but last I had heard they were able to re-route the system and Fort was back on soon after.

As far as the towers, they are weighing various options. I believe they have a temporary solution on the hill. But their replacements may take years, if replaced at all.

 

[gordon115]

Thanks for the information John.

Gordon

 

[cboykonh]

unitil?

 

[GraniteScanner]

unitil?

Many of the systems on the hill have been back up for some time now. This incident happened in late December of last year.

 

[cboykonh]

NOAA 162.40 down again. Not sure if it’s connected to the tower collapse but it’s definitely out again.

 

[creeperjeep]

Many of the business customers that were up there have moved on.
The ownership has been extremely slow to act and communicate.

 

[cboykonh]

I reported the 162.40 transmitter is offline so the nws is aware of this now.