I made a decent living climbing towers for about 13 years. It wasn't my main
job, but I climbed LOTS of towers. Every time I
climbed a felt a little bit afraid. I think this helps. It's when you don't
feel scared is when you get in trouble. The worst
thing that ever happened was when I cut one too many cable ties and 500' of
7/8" heliax (used) fell to the ground. Luckily the
ground crew saw it coming and ducked into the building.
Back then we didn't use harnesses, only climbing belts. I still have my
original belt and still use it to climb my ham towers.
It's in excellent shape. It's the one thing you ALWAYS take good care of. Now
I use a secondary lanyard with my belt and stay
attached to the tower at all times. Full body harnesses are now required when
climbing over 4' in height offshore. Oil companies
have learned that safety is not only a good thing, but it actually pays in the
long run. It wasn't always like that.
73, Don AA5AU
http://www.aa5au.com
http://www.rttycontesting.com
-----Original Message-----
From: rtty-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:rtty-bounces@contesting.com] On
Behalf Of Carter
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2008 7:40 PM
To: Bill Turner
Cc: RF Amps reflector; HamRadioAntenna Yahoo; dxlab@yahoogroups.com; Ham
Amplifiers; rtty@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [RTTY] Tower Dogs TV program
Bill Turner wrote:
> Not topic-related exactly, but probably of interest to subscribers:
>
> "DATELINE" PRESENTS "TOWER DOGS" -- A NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN LOOK AT THE
> MOST DANGEROUS JOB IN AMERICA -- MONDAY, JULY 21 AT 10 PM
>
> (New York) - July 16, 2008 - An upcoming "Dateline Presents" takes a
> never-before-seen journey into the perilous world of the tower
> climbers who work on the frontlines of America's high-tech
> communications system.
> They
> scale heights of up to 2,000 feet, in all types of weather, to
> install, maintain, and upgrade cell phone, Internet, and broadcast
> towers coast to coast. And according to figures cited by OSHA, these
> so-called tower dogs have the highest death rate per capita of any
> occupation in the country.
>
>
You don't have to be crazy to have a job like this, but I'm sure it helps.
Reminds me of when I first hired in to the phone company back in '68 and the
Telco was in the CATV business. We had a tower crew
that got all drunked up one evening and one of them decided he could climb to
the top of the head-end tower and slide down a guy
wire to ground.
Well, he got to the top OK and started to slide down. Unfortunately, about a
third of the way down, his gloves started to smoke and
he let go. Broke damn near every bone in his body; was in the hospital for
almost 2 years but lived to see another day.
They say God protects fools and drunks, and it looks like he won on both
counts...
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