Nathan601

460, Will or Chris, whatever your name may be, I am assuming I've spoken with the same person as you formerly with American Tower. A friend of mine from there has been involved with this project from the beginning. His position, as is mine, being that any tower that can be reasonably purchased already standing blows away the ordeal and costs of any tower proposed for construction. The actual erecting cost of a 1000' tower is a minimum of a million dollars, if the tower steel is donated. Then you have to get the steel transported from North Carolina or New York or wherever to TX or wherever in the largest pieces you can manage because anything disassembled requires new steel, labor and materials to reassemble. Also, you have the additional cost of land purchase, anchor points and any additional engineering/construction costs you throw in for modification of the donated steel and addition of the external elevator. As well as, the costs of land clearing, though some of these could be recouped if you are able to sell any of the lumber cleared. Of course if you intend to use the site at all, you construction costs of any additional buildings to be used for business or packing, landscaping/drainage as well as land use, zoning compliance, and permit costs as required for whatever location you want to use and you have to file for registration with the FCC. Then, you have to petition through the FAA with all airspace users in the area proposed, giving each of them the time and opportunity to challenge the construction, its purpose and chosen location. As far as placing cellular antennas on the tower. No cellular company will touch a tower used for jumping. The liability and potential disruption of service for them is unreasonable high, no matter how little you charge. Night Base 107

Najette is quite beautiful and kept me laughing during my short stay. And, you're right, Olav is the man, not to mention his 19 year old 'available' and sexy daughter. However, the prices are the way of Norway. If you don't like paying a little to have a very short hike, bring a tent or head to another country. Peace! Night Base 107

About eight months ago I started communication with the owners of an 1163' tower on 37 acres of cleared land. The tower had been unused by maintained for almost five years. It was originally designed and built with an internal elevator that was removed decades ago, but meets all the stress load requirements to return to service as a full fledged transmitter. However, instead of the load and stress of a transmitter, a jump platform and an external elevator of a faster variety than the original, OSHA limiting to 200'/minute with person's on board could be installed. I talked to the station managers and engineers and than the corporate office that owns the land and tower then started negotiations. They have been difficult to work with but slowly had become interested in selling. This was when I thought I might stay in this area and financial backing from a second investor was to cover half of the purchase and all of the site modifications. After seven months of delays, she grew tired and walked away when the price was stepping up from what I could cover on my end. Currently, the price is set at 1.2 million due to the usability of the tower and the commercial value of the land. In addition, it will cost up to 800k to retrofit the tower with an elevator and platform, as well as, renovating the 2500 sq' office building at its base, upgrading security and constructing at least one building for transient packing, classrooms and other storage needs. I never invisioned this as a jumper supported site. I had proposed a few other businesses to cover Most of the costs of purchase. They include leasing of facilities for training of tower construction personnel, teaming with a local computer science lab specializing in robotics and A.I. for low cost parachute testing and data analysis among other defense oriented projects, and teaming with local and state emergency management groups to lease a small amount of space for training rescue and law enforcement personnel (Its better to make friends of them in this area). There are a few smaller uses of the site, also, that I will pass to anyone that is interested and able to pick up this project. This brings me to where it stands today. I am leaving for Norway in a week and will be on the road until then. In early August I will be returning the states and preparing to move back to New Orleans and far away from this location. At that time, any interested and capable parties can contact me directly. If you are truly able to take on this project I will pass on everything I know about the site, contacts with the other business aspects of its use and all legal information gathered. Any serious inquiries can contact me directly. If you don't know me or how to reach me, you will find a way to do so I am sure. I will not respond to simple inquiries from persons not capable of taking on this project as discussion of that nature is better suited to this BASEBoard. Thank you and good evening, Nathan Blaesing

Hey Jason, Long time no word. Life treating you well? Take care, Nathan Night Base 107

I used to have a good freestander that I would exit facing it and if the winds cut off I would just turn to whichever side it opened and fly past the side to landing but I jumped facing away and had it collapse on me at a 100' from the wind shear turbulance. And just like Tom, I've had a PC come back at me with the wind. However, on higher jumps, I often exit normal and turn to track into the tower on high wind days. Almost every jump is like this in the fall for me, here. SOmething to think about. Both floater exits on a low freestander and tracking up to the steal on a tall tower go against what you learn early and are a bit trippy at first but logically make sense. That is, if you're going to exit on a high wind day in the first place. That leaves some room for thought in itself. I commend the climbing down to ask. Night Base 107

Broke knees heal too quick and lend to an invincibility complex if they do so if you recall as I do how they took care of my friend John V. for his stupidity to impress a woman. They stripped him down, and literally tarred and feathered him. Burned him like he burned the building he hopped and it took him months to get the tar off. He had to shave his whole body eventually, but he learned and will never forget. Night Base 107

I look forward to reading it. Where will we find this historic look at our sport from the press? I'm going to order a copy and check it out. Night Base 107

I've made a few off a local powerline set here and found it to be a bit trippy watching someone go slow off the middle wire platform as it often arced to them as the passed five or so feet under the top wire and in the fog the insulators tended to have a little light show of their own but jumping the top platform with a slight under hang on exit but over hung overall was always a great way to gain 300' of adrenaline. Enjoy dude, Nathan Night Base 107

Thank you Arnie. I look forward to hearing from you. Night Base 107

Does anyone have contact information for Iiro Seppanen? Night Base 107

I'm headed to South Africa for the month of March and trying to find a contact. Heard about some objects but not about who's local. Does anyone have a lead on a local jumper? Thanks Nathan Blaesing Night Base 107