The Down East Seniors Club held its Jan. 4 meeting at the Blind Center of North Carolina in Washington. President Stewart Rumley led the meeting. Jim Hackney played for the singing of “God Bless America” and Charles Smith gave the invocation. Dick Paul provided humor.

Rumley reminded the club that it is time to pay quarterly dues.

Jim Hackney introduced Wayne Estabrooks as the speaker. Estabrooks retired in 2007 after serving 20 years as the chief transmission engineer of WUNC-TV. Estabrooks told about the erection of the new transmission tower for WUND-TV, the PBS station located near Columbia. This station had a 1,200-foot tower constructed of painted steel tubing which was showing severe rust in some of its welded joints. Considerable rusting was expected inside the tubing. In the late 1990s, it was determined that this tower needed to be replaced by one that was rust-resistant for safety and taller to meet increased transmission needs for digital TV and public radio. In 1999, the new 1,642-foot tower constructed of solid steel bars with galvanized coating was erected near the old one. The total weight of steel in the new tower was just over 1.1 million pounds. The base for the tower was a reinforced concrete pad 20 feet square and 7 feet thick on top of four reinforced concrete pilings that went 70 feet into the ground. Guy wires went out to 12 concrete pads, each of which rested on reinforced concrete pilings that went 40 feet into the ground. There was an elaborate lightening control system installed on the tower and guy wires. An elevator was built in the tower to facilitate servicing.

Gene Schwartz won the 50/50 drawing.