Terry wrote:
> First, let me say I know absolutely nothing about climbing towers. With
> that said....why is the damaged section of the tower being climbed? How
> would you know the integreity of the connection to the standing part of
> the tower?
>
The only thing you know for certain, even after climbing up to the break
on the supposedly good section is "the integrity of those connections
has been compromised.". OTOH, giving the benefit of the doubt they may
have added reinforcing at the break. I know what my guess is, but not
having been there we can't know for sure.
Me? Quite some years ago I went up the base of a tower that was in a
similar situation. That base was anchored/bracketed to the peak of a
roof at roughly 30'. The tower had folded over the roof and down the
other side of the house. After carefully checking things out, I sawed
off the section laying over the roof. This is when I discovered the
brackets (that looked good) were in fact rusted through and I was on a
30 foot, free standing base for a bracketed and guyed tower.
Unfortunately I had turned and was facing away from the house as this
strange feeling of insecurity came over me. I pivoted and reached
behind me and grabbed... a heavy eye-bolt in the roof.. Bear in mind I
could not see the eye-bolt, nor could I see the tower was already a foot
of more from the roof and headed in the wrong direction. Grabbing that
eye-bolt was pure luck. I did know it was there, but I didn't know it
was that much farther away and getting farther.
Although there was close to 3' of snow on the ground I had no desire to
ride a 30 tower into 3[' of snow, let alone not knowing what might be
under the snow.
I pulled the tower (and myself) back to the roof and called for some
reinforcements. We tied temporary guys to the top of the 30' of tower,
I slid down and then we just let the whole thing over. Oh! did I mention
one of the tower legs was broken at the base too? <:-)) I cheked the
tower base visually and with a hammer, but missed the weak spot by
enough it didn't show.
I had done this many times, but when climbing an old tower you never
know for certain just what you have under you.
In the case of the guy going out on the horizontal section, I'd want
some sort of support be it a bucket truck (which can easily reach that
high) or be in the basket hung from a crane.
73
Roger (K8RI)
> 73 de Terry KK6T
>
> Dave Tipton wrote:
>
>> Check out what happened in Denton County, Texas this week. I don't know
>> whether to recommend this manufacturer for how it fell, or not to recommend
>> them because it fell at 60mph, when it was rated for 125..
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/drc/localnews/stories/DRC_Weather_
>> 0209.34eb27df.html
>>
>>
>>
>> Dave, W5DMT
>>
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