[TowerTalk] Raising Towers

[Jim Lux]

On 12/26/13 3:16 PM, Michael Tope wrote:
> On 12/26/2013 1:37 PM, Jim Lux wrote:
>>
>>> I was pointing a few possible problems to show to others what can happen
>>> or give another possibility
>>> to do not put in risk life or property  but what was the response?
>>> supportive?  destructive?
>>
>> Indeed.. but one aspect that comes up a LOT on TT is the whole thing
>> of "code compliance" or "good engineering practice". Whether it's
>> guying, strength of materials, or grounding practices, there's a huge
>> amount of room to maneuver, depending on what one's risk acceptance
>> strategy is.
>>
>> I think that the original topic here was an excellent example of
>> someone who has a situation where "if it falls down, nobody will care,
>> other than the builder", which is decidedly not the case when the
>> local planning department is asking for wet stamped drawings from a PE
>> (or maybe it is, and asking for excessive documentation is a way to
>> restrict antennas and towers).
>>
>> I didn't see anything fundamentally "unsafe" in the pictures. Unlike a
>> lot of field day pictures you see, there's nobody standing underneath
>> the towers being pulled up, so if his manky tow rope does fail, he
>> winds up with some bent scrap metal, not a trip to the ER or a call to
>> the coroner.
>
> Jim, I had somewhat the same feeling until I scrolled down to the
> "selfie" of the guy taken from the top of one of those homebrew 200'
> towers made from chain-link fence top-rail. You can clearly see the
> safety lanyard made from dacron rope with frayed ends that is holding
> him in place. While I greatly admire the vigor of an 85 year old guy who
> fabricates and installs 200' towers by himself, nobody should be under
> any allusions that what he is doing is remotely safe (at least when it
> comes to the climbing part of it).
>

Yeah, I finally found that one..
I'm not so wild about climbing with just a belt. BUT.. if that's a piece 
of kernmantle static line, which is kind of what it looks like, I don't 
think that's the biggest of his problems.  I'd worry more about one of 
the innummerable welds popping loose when the hook pulls on it. And it 
kind of looks like he's just looped it through the rings on his belt.

But hey, safety is relative.  When I learned to rock climb in the 70s, 
the "state of the art" was a swami belt of 20-25 ft of 1" webbing 
wrapped around your waist. You tied on with either a figure 8 or a 
bowline (which is what his hooks are tied on with).  That was considered 
perfectly safe compared to crazy guys who would just tie the rope around 
their waist, or even crazier guys who just went rope free.

That this was a few short decades after the introduction of the "belay" 
and anchoring the belayer to the wall, as opposed to the late 19th 
century approach of tie everyone to the same rope, and move together, 
and "the leader must not fall".

So 'YRV thinks that he's ok, and while he's doing stuff that *I* 
wouldn't do, and neither would most people, it's not like he's climbing 
up that 200 ft tower with NO safety (which, in fact, people do..).  He's 
at sort of the 1960s-1970s safety practice level.

Should people take his example as one to follow?  Certainly not. Should 
we tell him "don't climb, until you have a certified harness, and use 
standard industry practice, and by the way, are you a certified welder?" 
  I don't think so. He clearly knows the consequences of failures (since 
he has the mishaps page).

It's sort of like people setting off on a solo sailboat trip across an 
ocean. Or jumping horses over fences. Or off-road racing.  It's a 
fundamentally unsafe thing to do.  There are more or less safe ways you 
can do it, but that doesn't change a lot of things.  Everyone gets to 
make their own decisions (hopefully with good advice, but free to ignore 
it).