[TowerTalk] ladders

[AA6DX - Mark]

Well, not to long ago, I fell off of a 40' ladder, and was not injured in 
the least.  Fortunately, I was on the 3rd rung up when I slipped.
Seriously, I cannot believe that for several years in the 60s I "clumb" 
towers .. mine and many others .. free handed, no belt, no rope .. how 
stupid!  The
only thing is from a safety point, you never thought you were hooked up when 
you weren't --- HIHI.  A ladder that you can rent sure makes crank-up
work easier!  Other I have used is rental scaffolding .. I learned to erect 
those whilst working as a hod carrier in the summer of `71 .. and let me 
tell you,
installing a quad or yagi on a crank-up 30' in the air can be a pleasure 
compared to hanging on the tower, and scaffold is CHEAP!
As to pulling up a 700' tower rope, you actually would do that using 1400' 
of  light --say, fish line -- that you dropped down the tower, with a 
weight, after running through the pulley you carried
up and put in position on the tower, and then your ground crew would connect 
the haul line to it and let THEM (or her) pull up the hawser.  Also, I put a 
pulley on the bottom leg(s) of the
tower, so the ground crew/truck can pull straight outwards .. worky worky! 
You want to NOT tire yourself while being a tower monkey .. work smart, not 
hard!  A good
ground crew can certainly make the job go much smoother, but, they must be 
equipped with hard hat, and be aware that a dropped socket/bolt/nut/wrench 
etc. can be a deadly missile!
73 Y'all ... cu on air. ..  AA6DX/40  K6H   CQP's coming soon!


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "jimlux" <jimlux at earthlink.net>
To: "Kevin Normoyle" <knormoyle at surfnetusa.com>
Cc: "'Towertalk'" <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 1:54 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] ladders


> Kevin Normoyle wrote:
>> If you're 55+, using a ladder seems to have a lot of risk.
>>
>> http://apha.confex.com/apha/135am/recordingredirect.cgi/id/17261
>> (
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk