ad: MLSons-1

Orlando Okleshen, W9RX SK

Discussion in 'Silent Keys / Friends Remembered' started by K9MM, May 5, 2017.

ad: L-HROutlet
ad: l-rl
ad: L-MFJ
ad: abrind-2
ad: Left-2
ad: Left-3
ad: Radclub22-2
  1. K9MM

    K9MM XML Subscriber QRZ Page

  2. KF5FEI

    KF5FEI Ham Member QRZ Page

    Was this the guy that used to make those good meter leads?
     
  3. K9MM

    K9MM XML Subscriber QRZ Page

    If he was, I'm not aware of that.
     
  4. KF5FEI

    KF5FEI Ham Member QRZ Page

    Maybe not. There was a guy back in the 80's that made fantastic meter leads with long, thin probes with teflon insulation. He was Oak something.

    I did see he was a BMW rider, so that may be where I recognize his name.
     
  5. K5UJ

    K5UJ Ham Member QRZ Page

    I saw in Silent Keys in QST this month that W9RX passed away. I did not know him personally but recall from my time in Tri-Town ARC that he used to be W9EXE then later W9RX and back then had a Rohn 25 tower that must have been around 120 feet high in Richton Park IL. He had a TH6 on it and in the early 1970s published an article in QST on how to strap a 40 m. rotatable dipole to the TH6 boom and get it all working with minimal interaction. He'd work Africa on 40 m. with that thing. Nowadays 40 m. beams are a lot more common but back then something on 40 you could rotate was a bit unusual. Oak chased DX and operated contests. He would show up at the W9VT field day operations and sit for hours on end making CW QSOs. That tower with the TH6 and 40 m. dipole was visible all over Richton Park IL back then.
     
  6. K9MM

    K9MM XML Subscriber QRZ Page

    Oak was a character if ever there was one, and I mean this only in the most complimentary way. If you got him going he would just talk your arm off. I used to occasionally go down to his house from the late '60s through the mid '70s and help him run multi-single entries in various DX contests. The original 120' tower was not Rohn 25. It was a very similar design made by Universal Towers, which was a Wisconsin company I think, and no relation to the other Universal Tower Co. which made aluminum towers. A massive storm brought the whole thing crashing down around him at one point, fortunately missing the house. He put it back up, and the replacement may have been Rohn 25.

    A job assignment from when he worked for the IIT Research Institute took him to Tonga for some time where he had the call VR5AE. This was before I knew him.

    He had a thing for big BMW motorcycles and used to take long trips on them. If my memory is correct, his rather petite wife rode one too. He was very seriously injured once in a motorcycle accident but eventually made a full recovery and was back riding again. I think I have one of his QSLs with a picture of his BMW.

    His full name was Orlando Obidiah Okleshen. We used to laugh about his initials being OOO. As I recall he came from a big family of about 10 kids, many of whom had less-common Biblical names.

    73,

    John, K9MM (K9WEH back in the day)
     
    K2HAT likes this.
  7. K5UJ

    K5UJ Ham Member QRZ Page

    Help me with some recollection of that tower as I have wondered about this occasionally in the past. I dimly recall the lots for houses in Oak's neighborhood were not all that big, but he had that tall guyed tower. I have this vague idea that he had guy anchors in other people's yards. I find that hard to believe but somehow I have that idea. If true, that kind of thing would never happen today. Another memory is that he had some kind of large pulley up at the top of the tower he used with a rope to get hardware up there. It might have just been a gin pole but I don't think so.

    Rob
    K5UJ
     
  8. K9MM

    K9MM XML Subscriber QRZ Page

    I'm not sure how much I can tell you that is reliable after over 40 years. As I recall, his house was on a 40' wide lot. He had huge steel guy anchors in concrete and they extended a number of feet above ground. I doubt that they extended outside his lot, but I can't be certain.

    Obviously, it was an attempt to support a very tall tower with much too small of a guy footprint. It was reasonably successful, but as I noted it did come down once and that could potentially have had very serious consequences. He got away 50 years ago with something that would never be approved now.

    No recollection of the pulley or gin pole at the top, but wouldn't be surprised if that was part of the setup. Oak was a smart guy and very creative!

    John, K9MM
     
  9. K5UJ

    K5UJ Ham Member QRZ Page

    Maybe the tower wasn't as tall as I remembered. But I know it wasn't 60 feet high either. If his lot was only 40 feet wide, no matter how deep or long it was, he could not have possibly guyed that tower with all anchors on his lot. I recall the base was behind his house so maybe one anchor came out to the front with the guys coming down over his house. That means the other two would have had to have been on some other land behind him. I've seen I beams used as anchors but on his lot size, even if they came up 10 or 20 feet the angle with the tower would have still been too small. Anyway, it appears that the 40 m. dipole pushed the wind load too high to survive a big storm. Sorry to get so focused on this but I had not found anyone besides me who remembered that tower and nowadays as a ham with more experience, I had wondered how he got such a high tower on a small lot that wasn't free standing.
     
  10. K9MM

    K9MM XML Subscriber QRZ Page

    I'm quite certain the tower was actually 120' tall. It was guyed in a manner that certainly was unsound engineering. With the steep angle of the guy wires, the downforces on the tower sections must have been tremendous. Probably one of the reasons it came crashing down that time. That's all I can tell you, and I don't know of anyone else still living who could expand on this discussion.

    It's an interesting story from another era, but some questions may remain unanswered forever. RIP, Oak, my old buddy and long time friend!

    John, K9MM
     
  11. K5UJ

    K5UJ Ham Member QRZ Page

    Tnx John
     

Share This Page

ad: M2Ant-1