I've been thinking about this subject ever since climbing my first tower,
the 90-footer at W2SC's 8P station. We had a harness, but no fall arrest
lanyard. There was no chest ring, and I don't remember if there was a ring
on the back of the harness. So, I used two positioning lanyards. Both
lanyards were around the tower as I climbed. When I reached a set of guys, I
unhooked one lanyard, moved it above the guys, and rehooked it. Then I
repeated with the second lanyard.
Although I always had a positioning lanyard around the tower, I wondered
just how much this would protect me if I fell. I envisioned the positioning
lanyard(s) sliding down the tower, possibly a long way, before perhaps
stopping at the next guy set. Sounds like potential for serious injury.
Would a positioning lanyard slide that much or would there be enough
friction between the rope and tower to stop you in a few feet?
I recently saw a professional rigger use a fall arrest lanyard is a somewhat
different manner than Chuck. He climbed with the positioning lanyard around
the tower, and only used the fall arrest lanyard when he needed to unhook
the positioning lanyard to get past obstructions. Once the positioning
lanyard was above the guys, he unhooked and stowed the free end of the fall
arrest lanyard until the next obstruction. Once at his destination, both
lanyards were used for maximum safety. Again, I wondered whether it's really
safe to climb with just the positioning lanyard attached. Obviously, it's
better than free-climbing, but is it safe?
One solution to Chuck's problem is to use only the D-ring on the back of the
harness for the fall arrest lanyard. That way, you can't accidentally unhook
the wrong end. As far as I know, the chest ring isn't supposed to be used
for a fall arrest lanyard anyway. Isn't it for things like the jumar used
with a safety wire running the length of the tower or positioning a sitting
harness that's suspended from above? Seems to me if you fell with the fall
arrest lanyard attached to the chest ring the lanyard could smash into your
face pretty hard.
73, Dick WC1M
> -----Original Message-----
> From: towertalk-admin@contesting.com
> [mailto:towertalk-admin@contesting.com]On Behalf Of Chuck Lewis
> Sent: Monday, December 16, 2002 2:05 PM
> To: Mark Beckwith; towertalk@contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [Towertalk] Double protection - climbing
>
>
> TowerTalkers,
>
> Here's A similar 'Gotcha'. Fortunately I caught IT before it got ME:
>
> I was recently replacing the large vertical on our local DX cluster node
> antenna (110'), and doing a little maintenance on some other stuff while I
> was up there. I use a fall arrest harness with both positioning and fall
> arrest lanyards. The fall arrest lanyard is the 'extendible'
> type, which has
> about five feet of stretch before snugging up. One end attaches
> to the chest
> D ring, and one end to the tower. It was brand new and I was enjoying the
> feeling of added security as I climbed past the guy attach points
> (reach up,
> attach FAR, disconnect positioning lanyard, swing it around tower above
> guys, reattach to waist ring, climb six feet, reach down, grab FAR hook,
> reposition on tower overhead and continue, always having one
> lanyard between
> me and the tower). This was working great, but eventually, because of a
> snagged halyard, I wound up oscillating up and down a couple times, always
> around a guy attachment. But worse, when climbing down, I kept
> forgetting to
> release the upper FAR hook until it snugged up (out-of-reach of course,
> being extendible) and I had to climb back up a few feet to reach
> it. Anyway,
> after a series of these irritating dumb*ss reversed direction episodes, I
> looked down at the FAR attached to the tower and looked up at the FAR also
> ATTACHED TO THE TOWER! The tower was really safe, but MY safety redundancy
> was zero! Clearly, I had grabbed the hook from the chest D ring and firmly
> planted it on the tower at my feet prior to one of the downward
> oscillations. Yes, it was a long climbing session; yes, I was
> TIRED; yes, I
> was COMPLACENT with the added security; yes, I was IRRITATED at myself for
> mental errors; yes, there were dark clouds moving in and I was in a HURRY.
> Tired, Complacent, Irritated, and Hurried. All the ingredients for a bad
> day.
>
> This led to a suggestion by one of the ground crew to simply tape
> one of the
> FAR hooks around its gate to prevent (or at least as a reminder) removal
> from the chest D ring. I will do that from now on. But the real
> message here
> has more to do with the "tired, complacent, hurried, irritated (y'all can
> add a few others of your own)" components of the equation. Student pilots
> get this message
> fed to them over and over, along with the notion that disasters are seldom
> the result of single events...but from a series of mistakes by
> which we dig
> ourselves deeper and deeper into a hole. We can learn a lot from that
> philosophy.
>
> Chuck, N4NM
> (still here to tell this tale, and trying to start an "I learned about
> climbing from this:" thread)
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mark Beckwith" <mark@concertart.com>
> To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
> Sent: Monday, December 16, 2002 9:15 AM
> Subject: [Towertalk] Double protection - climbing
>
>
> > > You'll be safer if
> > > you have some sort of lanyard (i.e. the fall arrest lanyard
> on your fall
> > > arrest harness) that you can attach above you and then you
> can climb up
> to
> > it
> > > safely since you'll be attached to the tower 100% of the time you're
> > trying
> > > to get around your appurtenances. (You do have a FAH, don't you?)
> >
> > In my older years as I have used up more and more of my 9
> lives, I kid you
> > not, EVERY time I cross from below the guys to above the guys, (or a
> yagi),
> > I am really thankful I adopted a "double protection" practice at my new
> > station.
> >
> > When I was young and foolish, I would take the gamble every time. I try
> to
> > avoid that nowadays.
> >
> > On a related subject, which all day Friday as I put up 10M beams, I was
> > thinking I should share with the world:
> >
> > I had the good fortune to visit with a retired professional climber in
> 1994
> > as I was putting up large DX Engineering yagis out at N6VI/KH6
> (now KH7R)
> > for a contest we were getting ready for. He was an older guy
> who quit his
> > career after a fall, who, seriously, was touristing out there,
> spotted us
> at
> > work, and stopped by to see what we were doing (can't get it out of your
> > blood, I guess).
> >
> > We talked for a while. ALWAYS one to try and learn from other peoples'
> > mistakes, here was his mistake, which I think of EVERY TIME I cross past
> > guys or booms: As we all know, on a tower, you have to disconnect and
> > reconnect your main lanyard time after time after time. This fellow was
> in
> > a hurry, and when he re-attached, it was mistakenly to the shank of a
> large
> > tool, and not the big belt ring as he thought. He leaned back and they
> were
> > calling the ambulance.
> >
> > We should all be glad he lived to tell this story. Anyway, whenever I
> > reattach, before I unattach the above mentioned double protection, I
> > visually inspect my main lanyard to assure it is attached to my belt on
> both
> > ends.
> >
> > Thank God I got smarter as I got older.
> >
> > Have a good holiday everyone, I'm off to help a friend with a 4-square
> which
> > I will activate in the Stew. See you on the air.
> >
> > Mark, N5OT
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
>
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