?out On A Limb?

[+Rocky Road and Annie]

Am I being technically accurate or is this the sort of log (FB2645) that is a "find" by anyone who sees a tower in approximately the same place? I couldn't find the usual 4 concrete posts with bent threaded bolts sticking up, but I'm willing to bet a cheeseburger and a beer that this one is a goner. But I'm feeling way too guilty about posting it as destroyed without seeing the crumpled pieces of steel. I'll change my log if anyone has better info.

[Bill93]

For Groundspeak only, you could probably claim destroyed with a clear conscience if you got your facts from good sources. You need better evidence if you are interested in reporting to NGS.

 

Location is ADJUSTED. That means more accurate than your handheld GPS. Two sets of measurements posted for the present tower agree within 80 feet and both are almost 500 feet from the adjusted coordinates, which lie back up the road to the NE from the locations given in the logs. This says the new tower was not built on the old location.

 

If you are in the area, go back and find the exact spot indicated by your GPS for the official coordinates. If you go back on different days you could get some averaging to improve accuracy. If you can see some sky, you might be within 10's of feet and average to better than that. Look in that vicinity for evidence there has been a tower.

[mloser]

Actually, the NGS criteria for marking a tower as destroyed are not as strict as with monumented marks. You could probably show pictures of the tower with your GPSr in the pic showing the location and Deb would report the old tower as destroyed. I have done this in two cases, one with a water tower that simply no longer existed, and another with a TV antenna on a building that no longer existed.

[+seventhings]

Re: Look Rock Tower

 

The fact that the location of the standing concrete tower is several hundred feet from the adjusted coordinates of the described steel tower leads me to suspect (95%) that the station is destroyed. If I had the opportunity to visit the site and take a few handheld GPS readings, I suspect my confidence would rise to 100% quickly, whether or not I found the old concrete footings, etc.

 

Were I Rocky Road and Annie, I would call/e-mail the park HQ at Great Smokey Mountain NP and see if anyone there could confirm that the standing tower was erected post-1963, and/or that the standing tower definitely replaced an older steel tower.

 

Had I the opportunity to visit the area, I would take time and effort to assemble enough info to get NGS to reclassify the station as destroyed (see mloser, above), as I have for about a dozen such station to date. I get a perverse joy from getting NGS to relassify a station as DESTROYED when it has been "found" so easily by others. When I succeed in getting a station reclassified as destroyed, I make a point of editing my post to reflect that status.

 

Do not feel guilty about logging this station as DESTROYED - it is much more likely destroyed than not, based on the evidence that I've seen at the datasheet.

 

Good work.

 

Will

Edited February 7, 2005 by seventhings

[+Rocky Road and Annie]

Thanks for the info--I will have a chance to go back and search more carefully for the concrete footers with this info.