Now I've seen everything. I only thought I had before.
YIKES!!!
Mike - KI8R
On Thu, Dec 26, 2013 at 10:29 PM, <john@kk9a.com> wrote:
> I usually do not comment on things like this, however these are some of the
> scariest tower pictures I have seen. Besides the lack of any real P.P.E. I
> would be concerned about the integrity of the 200 foot towers. The tubing
> is kinked where it is bent who knows what the yield strength is or the
> condition the welds. http://w7yrv.blogspot.com/2013/10/roys-qth-w7yrv.html
> The guy cable appears to be very small wire rope. In one picture it is
> connected to the guy anchor with rubber bungee cords.
>
> John KK9A
>
>
> To:towertalk@contesting.com
> Subject:Re: [TowerTalk] Raising Towers
> From:Jim Lux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
> Date:Thu, 26 Dec 2013 17:03:06 -0800
> List-post:<towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
>
>
> Yeah, I finally found that one..
>
> I'm not so wild about climbing with just a belt. BUT.. if that's a piece of
> kernmantle static line, which is kind of what it looks like, I don't think
> that's the biggest of his problems. I'd worry more about one of the
> innummerable welds popping loose when the hook pulls on it. And it kind of
> looks like he's just looped it through the rings on his belt.
>
> But hey, safety is relative. When I learned to rock climb in the 70s, the
> "state of the art" was a swami belt of 20-25 ft of 1" webbing wrapped
> around
> your waist. You tied on with either a figure 8 or a bowline (which is what
> his hooks are tied on with). That was considered perfectly safe compared to
> crazy guys who would just tie the rope around their waist, or even crazier
> guys who just went rope free.
>
> That this was a few short decades after the introduction of the "belay" and
> anchoring the belayer to the wall, as opposed to the late 19th century
> approach of tie everyone to the same rope, and move together, and "the
> leader must not fall".
>
> So 'YRV thinks that he's ok, and while he's doing stuff that *I* wouldn't
> do, and neither would most people, it's not like he's climbing up that 200
> ft tower with NO safety (which, in fact, people do..). He's at sort of the
> 1960s-1970s safety practice level.
>
> Should people take his example as one to follow? Certainly not. Should we
> tell him "don't climb, until you have a certified harness, and use standard
> industry practice, and by the way, are you a certified welder?" I don't
> think so. He clearly knows the consequences of failures (since he has the
> mishaps page).
>
> It's sort of like people setting off on a solo sailboat trip across an
> ocean. Or jumping horses over fences. Or off-road racing. It's a
> fundamentally unsafe thing to do. There are more or less safe ways you can
> do it, but that doesn't change a lot of things. Everyone gets to make their
> own decisions (hopefully with good advice, but free to ignore it).
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
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--
-----------------------------------------------
Michael Murphy - KI8R
mike@ki8r.com
twitter.com/ki8r
www.ki8r.com
614-371-8265 (cell)
4SQRP #388
QRPARCI #14941
NAQCC #6432
FLYING PIGS #3100
KX3 #3254
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