After doing some work on my antennas today I tilted up my trusty old EZ Way
40ft tower (circa 1959). To my horror, just as I got within a few degrees of
vertical, the hinge pin sheared off on one side. The other side followed
soon thereafter. This left the tower sort of hanging from the lip of the
hinge and the tilt cable. After I got over the initial shock (and expectation
that the tower would fall immediately) I stabilized the situation as best I
could with various U-bolt kludges between the ground pole and the lower tower
segment. The problem is that I can't see any safe way to bring the tower
back down nor do I have the ability to repair the hinge in place (if in fact
that is possible). Help? Is this a known failure mode? The tower itself
is in good shape and I have kept the ground pole well painted, but I assume
that the inside of the hinge just rusted away. It's a little scary having the
tower in this state.

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com