VK Logger Ham Radio Forum Archive

ABC News wrote:Australia's tallest man-made structure, the Omega tower, has been demolished in a paddock in Gippsland.

The Omega radio navigation tower stood at around 430 metres tall but after a series of explosions it was brought crashing to Earth.

The defence facility was used for submarine navigation in the 1980s and '90s and was decommissioned in 2008.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-22/o ... ed/6412100

Sad to see it go. I used to live down that way as a kid and remember the hoo ha with some of the tinfoil hat brigade and the anti-war set. It was quite an impressive site.

Hello,
Well, I tried to prevent this destruction. My reason was that we have developed a rather good atmospheric wind profiler which we needed to calibrate (see my other post on the backscatter radar, sodar). This tower would have been ideal because of its height, it is rather difficult to find an equivalent on which we could have put some anemometers.

However, after several appeals to the current Federal Government, the choice to support local innovation was not successful,,, and so.

I could say a lot more about the state of support for science and innovation in Australia, but no one is listening.

Andrew
VK3OE

The main issue with letting it stand Andrew was the ongoing security cost of keeping the jumpers out. Bit of a shame, really nice piece of engineering.
- David

Hello David,

We actually offered to pay for the cost of upgraded physical security.

Next issue is, if people jump off bridges, buildings, cliffs etc., they are not demolished.
Even if people are killed in cars we do not ban cars.

Political issue, an anti science government.

Andrew.

Bloody scientific vandals.

VK3AUU

VK3KCX wrote:The main issue with letting it stand Andrew was the ongoing security cost of keeping the jumpers out. Bit of a shame, really nice piece of engineering.
- David

Sad day all because some moron base jumper.

VK2JDH wrote:Sad day all because some moron base jumper.

Removing the means for some idiot to potentially kill themselves is just part of the political correctness that is taking over this rapidly dumbing down world.
20 years ago nobody would have given a s**t, except some token expression of sorrow.

A golden opportunity gone to waste.
It could have been hired out to jumpers(prepaid) as they are rapidly running running out of places.
All it needed was a concrete pad to break the fall of those that chose not to wear a parachute.

cheers
Frank

MMM , not funny Om

Want to rethink it ?

Darwin was right. Why do we stand in the way of stupid people? If you choose to climb over or through a security fence, that clearly states you are trespassing and entering a dangerous area, then choose to climb a tower that is clearly not designed for jumping from, which also has a plethora of warning notices on it, then I am sorry, you clearly get what you deserve. We are turning into a PC Nanny state!