two antennas on fire in the Netherlands

Nobody got injured fortunately, but some will be without radio and television for a while i guess.

The second antenna came down because of the heat.



Now what are the odds that two antenna's catch fire on the same day?

That does seem strange. What was the cause, lightning?

reply to post by Wookiep


I don't think lightning was the cause, the weather is clear today.
The one that came down is sayd to have caught fire because of overload.
The first one i do not know, maybe the same cause.

reply to post by earthling42


Hmmmm, what could have caused that I wonder????? Scary to say the least. Do I smell a conspiracy brewing here?

That was only 1 tower. It came apart in the middle.

It fell because the guy wire anchor points were compromised by the fire, causing it to lean in one direction. That put an extreme amount of stress on the tower as a whole, and it broke apart in the middle. Once the upper part broke free, the lower part snapped back in the other direction causing it to topple over.

If you watch the video you can see the guy wires smoking from all the energy being loaded into them, causing the strands to twist and rub together and smoke.

Physics and engineering is awesome.

This seems to be a report on the fire in the video...

A fire caused a partial collapse of a 300-metre communications mast in northern Netherlands Friday, knocking out television and radio stations, a local municipal official said.

expatica


The other fire, no video, was apparently at the 300m IJsselstein (lopik) tower.
Wikipedia has this to say...

After a fire in the night of 14 july 2011, and the collapsed tower of smilde on 15 july 2011 the tower has been shut down for ferther investigation. leaving a great area of The Netherlands unable to recieve FM-radio and Digital TV(DVB-T).

wiki

2 you say?Hmmm very odd.If I remember correctly some antennas went down somewhere in the Middle East somewhere in the last week , just day's apart.There where reports of explosions and claims of suspected terrorism until the source and location was found and then the story disappeared.Someone sabbotaging communication's ?

Wow, what is the logic in making antennas out of flammable materials? Here's a hint Netherlanders, USE METAL.

Hm. Our own Twin Towers? I live near the Hoogersmilde one, but our own tv reception is fine. We'll check our local RTV in a minute, but it certainly draws the attention: two towers destroyed by fire, only hours apart. Probably coincidence, but I'll keep an eye out for anything interesting and give you all a shout if there is a twist to this tale.

The transmitters are in the base. The antennas are on the top. The coaxial lines are running up the middle of the tower. It is a tube style tower with the coaxial lines on the inside of the tube. The coaxial lines were on fire. Either from a short of one of the wires that ran the aviation hazard lights, or a coaxial cable had an internal failure from the high power that is running through them. Either way, they started to burn. So the fire was contained inside like a stovepipe. The metal weakened. The tower fell.. END OF LINE.

Side note: Can someone translate into english what that guy was saying?
Im sure it had some profanities in it.
It sounded like he was yelling AT the tower. saying" HEY!! HEY!! Dont you do that!!

oh man...thats a dutch catastrophe by the looks of it.

hope it has insurance.

Originally posted by Aggie Man
Wow, what is the logic in making antennas out of flammable materials? Here's a hint Netherlanders, USE METAL.

I guess you could say the same about the WTC towers

Originally posted by 12voltz

Originally posted by Aggie Man
Wow, what is the logic in making antennas out of flammable materials? Here's a hint Netherlanders, USE METAL.

I guess you could say the same about the WTC towers

Yeah, I suppose you could. Touche!

All I know is that every radio tower I have ever seen here in the US is a metal structure. Hell, those things are glorified lightning rods. With the WTC, I can at least understand the reasoning for flammable materials being implemented into the construction....radio towers, not so much.

reply to post by Talltexxxan


He overreacted a little and cursed alot, so i'd better not translate it

Some footage from last year



and another video from today, it is clear that the heat weakened the pipe and it collapses.

reply to post by Mr Tranny


Yeah thats right! and also due to to many providers were renting space on the towers lead to this destruction.

Alticom warned in 2007 that something like this could happen.The report warned of 'danger of falling "and" electric shock "because of the number of companies that have access to the tower. There should also be 'electrocution and burns "because transmitting antennas may be indistinguishable from mast constructions and there is a high power transmission equipment on board.
Source dutch newspaper

But its strange that 2 different antennas on different places were struck on the same day?

Yes, someone that had access to the site could have thrown a fire bomb into the bottom mass of cabling at the base of the mast.

That is the problems with “community” antennas like that. Everyone and his brother has ran all over the place, so security is lax. Doors are left unlocked, and odd activity doesn’t attract attention.

The first one is believed to have had a faulty wire which caused the fire.
Lopik, the first antenna will be back in use tommorow midday.