In a message dated 7/4/01 6:23:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
hankarn@pacbell.net writes:
> You never hug the pole unless you want to breakout and slide
> rapidly down it until your belt hooks onto a spike hopefully before your
> body does. Knees straight both gaffs set and leaning out.
> Practice close to the ground all aspects until you feel comfortable,
> then go up to 10 feet, up and down to feel at home.
> Skinning a tree is not as bad as a training pole, but we had crotch, leg
> and arm straps along with linemen's gloves.
All good tips. (Does 'skinning' a tree mean climbing it?)
I'm a *real reluctant* tree climber. Customers wanted antennas and
halyards installed in trees so I had to do it. I've installed a bunch of
halyards for wire antennas as well as 14-15 yagis including a couple of
402CD's. Having never observed an arborist I had to learn while I was doing
it.
Gaff placement is pretty easy - just poke the spur into the tree bark.
You need to be leaning back as was pointed out above. Once you've got both
feet planted, lean forward to unweight the lanyard around the tree. When the
lanyard is unweighted and both hands are holding it, flip it up so that the
lanyard is higher on the tree. Step up until you can't go any farther because
the lanyard is stopping you and lean forward and flip it up again. I'm sure
we've all seen at some time those logger rodeo events where they race to the
top of a pole and then rapidly descend; their use of flipping the lanyard up
is pretty obvious. Repeat as many times as necessary.
I always have a lanyard around the tree and climb with two of them. When
you get to branches, take the hanging one and throw it around the tree above
the branches. When it's secured, release the bottom one and head up. More
braches - do the same thing. Lots of times the branches will be so dense that
all you're doing is alternating lanyards. I'm not comfortable climging branch
to branch unbelted so I'm always attached to the tree.
Don't confuse the two belts and do everything the same way each time;
i.e. throw the *new* lanyard around the tree, LOOK while you clip it to your
belt, unhook the other *old* one, hold onto the loose end as you weight the
new belt, when you're weighted pull the old belt back around the tree, repeat
each step every time. You can paint the ends of one of the lanyards so that
it's obviously different than the other one.
I use my regular trusty Klein pole strap for tree work as well as towers.
In a tree I have two of them. My regular is a 3-6' adjustable and the other
tree one is 4-7'. Even at 7-feet sometimes it isn't enough to get around the
tree. In these cases I use an extension ladder to get up higher where I can
and/or a one-foot strap extension. Arborists use rope with a wire inside to
prevent cutting through it and a 'cat's paw' knot that is adjustable.
If you want to do it yourself, up here in Washington state you can rent
spurs and belts at a rental store. Climbing trees is HARD WORK. It's dirty
and exhausting so you need to be reasonably commited to attempt it.
>
> BE SAFE in all cases. You can always find a tree service that has a
> climber that can go up and do the work and be on the ground before you
> can get to the top. Here in So Cal they climb palms like monkeys. They
> look like they are running up and down the palms. They are doing it
> everyday all day.
For tree work they're great. For anything else like anything to do with
installing an antenna they not so great. If you're going to hire an arborist,
tell him *everything* he needs to know TWICE so that once he gets up there he
knows apporximately what to do and give him an HT so that you can give
directions from the ground.
Installing HF yagis in trees is another topic.
Cheers, Steve K7LXC
Tower Tech
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