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<div class="itemTitle">One Dead, One Injured in New
Hampshire Ham Radio Tower Mishap</div>
<p class="default">A tower
dismantling turned tragic on Saturday, July 27, in Deerfield, New
Hampshire, when
two radio amateurs working some 40 feet up on the tower were
carried to the
ground when the structure collapsed. Joseph Areyzaga, K1JGA, 52,
of
Goffstown, New Hampshire, did not survive injuries sustained in
the fall, while
the tower's owner, Michael Rancourt, K1EEE, 65, was seriously
injured and
remains</p>
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<td><img alt=""
src="http://www3.arrl.org/nl/al/image/Joe-Areyzaga-K1JGA.jpg"
height="237" align="right" width="176">
<p class="default"><b>Joseph Areyzaga, K1JGA.</b></p>
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<p class="default">hospitalized. Rancourt was taking down the tower
in preparation for selling
his house, and the pair had nearly completed their work. They were
tied
into the tower and went down with it as it collapsed.</p>
<p class="default">The
tower, a tilt-over model said to be 40 to 50 feet, had been bolted
to
prevent it from tilting as it was being dismantled.</p>
<p class="default">A law
enforcement source said a number of people were at the site for a
social
gathering as the tower was being taken down, and they witnessed
the tragedy.</p>
<p class="default">No official determination has been made regarding
the
cause of the structural failure, but a radio amateur who visited
the scene
afterward observed that two of the tower's three legs were clearly
compromised
and split cleanly and the third leg bent, just above the fully
intact tilt
base.</p>
The New Hampshire Amateur Radio tower-related
fatality is the second such deadly incident in a little more than 6
weeks. In
mid-June, a Pennsylvania radio amateur died when the tower he was
installing collapsed as he was attempting to attach a guy line to
the structure's
bottom section.
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