"Hi, this is William with the rescue squad and the installer of the lights on the tower. Got your message about you wanted some information about the tower and the rescue squad.

The tower is a new tower that was installed in April of this year to replace the old tower that was installed in the early 60's. Weather had taken it's toll on the old tower and the trees had damaged the guy wires.

The new tower is 150 feet tall and is self-supporting, (i.e. no guy wires). It is the same height as the old one. Having no guy wires makes the tower less susceptible to damage from the trees. The tower has a very low
profile, which allows for it to blend in to the trees around so it is not noticeable. At the base, the tower is 48 inches across, but at the top is only 18 inches, which top 25 feet is 18 inches across. To climb up the tower, the tower has a built-in safety cable system which you connect on to. If you where to slip and fall, the safety system would catch and arrest the fall.

Currently, the tower's primary use is for a radio system that we conduct special events on. (UVA football, Charlottesville 10 Miler) Due to it's small size of the tower and restrictions, it will not be used by any of the cell phone companies or the proposed new 800 mHz radio system for emergency services. (In order for it to handle the weight and wind load of the 800 mHz system antenna's, the tower would have had look like the one at the Virginia Power building on Hydraulic Rd.)

The Christmas Lights..... I had Christmas lights on the old tower, which I put up in 1994 but not all the way to the top and a small 4ft Christmas tree. Due to the condition of the tower for the past 2 years we did not turn them on because I could not go up and maintenance the broken bulbs and wire. Those lights where the C-7 size bulb, which were not that bright. The new lights are the C-9 bulbs which are 7 watts each are very bright.

Here are the basic static's:

Tree: 6.5 ft, with 37 multicolor bulbs
Tower: 152 red, 198 white, 322 blue. 680 ft of wire
Watts of Light: 4,963
Vertical Ft climbed up and down: 1350
Total number of hours install: 18, over 3 different days and nights. 6 hours day, 12 hours at night.
Number of phone calls to 911 to report a person on the tower: 3 (the day hours)
Amount of sway at the top: About 8 to 12 inches according to the people on the ground.
Amount of money spent of public donations on it: NONE

ALL the lights and materials where purchased by me. It would not be appropriate to spend donation dollars on this project.

The tower was originally going to be done in standard colors (white,blue,red,orange,green), but I asked our members if they wanted to see it in red,white and blue due the events of this year. All of them agreed the red, white and blue would be the colors of there choice. So, the tree was done in standard colors and the tower in red, white and blue. The tree represents a "normal life" that America had before the events of Sept 11th,
and tower represents the American rights to protect, defend and reclaim our lives

As from your picture on your site, the tree has suffered some damage due to the high winds over the past 2 days. I will be heading up for to make repairs sometime over this weekend, as long as the weather permits.

For more information about the squad in general, our web site, www.carsrescue.org has a good background of the squad and all the services we perform.

Donations can be sent to our post office box, 160 Charlottesville, 22902

Thanks,

William Spencer (electronic mail, December 21, 2001).