Brush Cutting Detail

Saturday, November 11, 2000
Hyland Hill Brush Cutting Detail
(Copied from the December 2000 Aerial) - with permission of course.....

The brush cutting detail went very well, and actually spanned two days. When we initially scheduled Saturday, Nov 11 for the day to bush-whack, we also planned that Sunday would be the rain date. 
Plans were to meet at K-Mart on West St in Keene at 0945 and head up from there. Primarily because it's a 4-wheel drive goat path - er - I mean road.
When I first woke up Saturday morning, I was just laying in bed watching the eves drip. I really didn't expect that we'd go up on the 11th because it had been raining for the past couple days and wasn't supposed to quit until sometime in the afternoon. I got up and turned on the radios to begin listening for people making inquiries about whether or not we'd be going up. Dale, N1NCI called me on the UHF machine and said that he'd already talked to Len, WA1UNN who thought we ought to postpone things until Sunday, and Dale wanted to know what my feelings were. I agreed that it probably was too wet, even though it wasn't currently raining at my place in Surry. While Dale and I were talking, Bruce, WA1YZN came on and said he'd jump over onto the CCDX repeater and make a couple announcements. I was listening and shortly heard Bruce talking to Norm, N1SJK and Barry, KB1DVT. 
Norm and Barry were still planning on going up, even though the core group wasn't going up now until Sunday.
After hearing this conversation, I decided that I too would go up, because I felt obligated, as it was me that picked the date in the first place. So I grabbed my saw, coat, gloves and a mug of coffee and hit the road. I was going to head to K-Mart, just in case somebody showed up that hadn't heard Bruce's announcement. 
A little while after I hit the road, I heard Dean, W1VK calling on 805 from K-Mart to see if anybody was going up. Bruce answered him and told him we'd changed things until Sunday. 
I called Dale again on the UHF machine to ask if he had a key to the gate because I was headed up too. Dale was shopping again at the dump and said that if I wanted to wait for him to get back to town, he'd meet me at K-Mart. When I got there, I found Dean and told him that I was going up too and within about 15 minutes, Dale arrived and he too decided to head up with us. We all piled into my truck and headed up. Dale had gotten a hold of Norm and Barry to let them know we were headed up too so we'd unlock the gate and drive to the towers. 
We made our way up the road and into the clouds, met up with the other two and shortly after that got to work. It really wasn't bad up there. It wasn't raining, oh it was damp though, and everything was soaked, but, we didn't work up a sweat and no bugs!! Our work crew of 5 had two chain saws, some brush cutters and a couple bow saws. We thrashed and crashed and had 80% of it all cut within a couple hours. We also figured that we'd just cut today, and tomorrows crew could finish the cutting and clean up.
Sunday's crew had 11 people, with a few repeats from Saturday. 
The day was much nicer! Blue sky and a little wind, but it was dry! The lower guy line still needed a fair amount of clearing and by the sound of the chain saws, that was going pretty well too. 
Len came up and he and I spent most of the time up there inside working on the repeater. It was the first time I had actually seen the repeater for about 10 years. Wow, the mice sure have found a nice warm home. Time to get them evicted! We worked on the remote receiver project, got the autopatch board reinstalled and working and basically gave `ole Henry a little TLC, which he desperately needs.
Thanks to the Saturday crew of:
KB1DVT, N1NCI, N1SJK, W1VK, WA1ZYX

And thanks to the Sunday crew of: (In no particular order)
K2XD, KA1TWX, N1KWF, N1KWM, N1NCI, N1SJK, N1XOQ, W1WWW, WA1UNN, WA1YZN, WA1ZYX

73 de Joel WA1ZYX. 

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