[TowerTalk] Tower Climbing Safety

[Pete Smith]

At 05:48 AM 2/12/02 -0800, Frank Ayers wrote:
>
>
>>--- Original Message ---
>>From: kb9cry@attbi.com
>>To: towertalk@contesting.com
>>Date: 2/11/02 11:26:59 AM
>>An important note to make is that all of you should have 
>>a shock absorbing lanyard.  The reason is, to sum it up 
>>greatly, is that when your body falls, and then is 
>>abrupty stopped by a line, the forces that are exterted 
>>on the body are on the order of about 5000 lbs for a 
>>typical 300 lb body.  That's enough force to really mess 
>>you up.  The shock absorbing lanyards are designed to 
>>cushion the fall shock to on the order of around 500 lbs.
>
>Question - I've always used a lanyard made from some heavy dynamic
>kermantle climbing rope. Would you think that would suffice or
>would you suggest getting one of the commercial "progressive"
>shock absorbing lanyards?

Wait a sec -- the physics don't compute.  If you have the fall arrest
lanyard hooked above your head somewhere, you will only fall a couple of
feet before it takes up the slack -- no way 1/2 MV^2 adds up to the sort of
numbers portrayed above.  Presumably the type of lanyard discussed is of
the one-use type, which stretch/tears and doesn't rebound (much).  I would
think a greater worry would be banging your head against the tower, and
that risk might actually be increased if the lanyard was too elastic.

73, Pete N4ZR

Sometimes a tower is
just a tower





________________________________________________________________________
Where do you get ICE bandpass filters & beverage matching boxes?  The
same place that pays for the hosting of this list:  The eHam Store.
Order online at http://store.eham.net.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

-----
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/FAQ/towertalk
Submissions:              towertalk@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-towertalk@contesting.com