UTMC

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.todaysbigthing.com/betamax/b ... llscreen=1" width="640" height="360"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" quality="best" value="http://www.todaysbigthing.com/betamax/b ... llscreen=1" /> </object><div style='padding:5px 0; text-align:center; width:640px;'></div>

Holy smokes... Pretty neat vid.

Any comments or enlightening thought Calimarikid?

BALLS!

I'll bet these dudes are paid well.

Man I miss working the big towers. I haven't been over 200' in a couple years. There's something elemental about reaching the top of a 1k' tower with the sun rising and Bach's Toccata Fugue in D minor blasting on the ipod.

SSCAM wrote:BALLS!

I'll bet these dudes are paid well.

Not as well as you'd think. $25/hr is doing pretty good.

No.

I've climbed 300' towers before, but never without a static line and a rope-grab device. Once you learn to trust the harness, the fear starts to go away. Why these individuals climb the upper mast without a static line, makes no sense to me. It does not slow you down, except when you are falling which, of course, is the point.

Uh, repost link?

--Jaeger

That was kind of freaky, but there's never a better time to take up base jumping

/RM

FUCK. THAT.

Meh. 3rd classing. Big, predictable hand and footholds everywhere. Being a mere 50 feet off the deck would make you just as dead if you were to come off.

Now THIS....

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0oIeK0YtclU?fs ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0oIeK0YtclU?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>


(John Bachar did die climbing in 2009, though he was nearly killed in 2006 in a serious car accident)

wow. parachuting down not an option? all i can think about is doing his shift up there, being tired as fuck, and having to climb the whole way down before riding home.

calamari kid wrote:There's something elemental about reaching the top of a 1k' tower with the sun rising and Bach's Toccata Fugue in D minor blasting on the ipod.

Dude, that's awesome. I'm actually jealous. That would be cool.

calamari kid wrote:Not as well as you'd think. $25/hr is doing pretty good.

That's really fucked up. What're they doing up there, anyway? Any idea? I'm sure that wasn't done just for fun... was it?

dozer wrote:wow. parachuting down not an option? all i can think about is doing his shift up there, being tired as fuck, and having to climb the whole way down before riding home.

Imagine getting up there and suddenly getting a case of the shits.

--Jaeger

I can see climbing a tower, okay. But I couldn't do it while wearing gloves.

None of the antennas I've worked have had any kind of installed safety line. Most safety lines that are on towers are 3/8" steel cable as a standard static line wouldn't last a month being beaten against the tower by the winds at that elevation. A steel line gets cooked by the RF and becomes brittle which is my guess at why they aren't installed on the antennas. That actually killed a couple guys I worked with briefly. They left their steel winch line on the tower running past an FM antenna over night, and instead of climbing rode the line up the tower. The line snapped, two guys died and another is a vegetable.

It's not real technical climbing for sure, basically just a ginormus jungle gym. It can get interesting when you're on a monopole with limited pegs and you have to climb out/over/around another carriers installation. I saw a pretty tough guy puke from nerves after a particularly hairy monopole climb once.

I'm normally anti gloves myself, but it didn't take me long to adopt them for this gig. There are all kinds of odd pointy bits that you can grab without knowing they're there, not to mention how cold the steel can get. I sure wouldn't want to be looking at a down climb with a couple blocks of ice on the ends of my arms.

I'm thinking that they were troubleshooting the beacon light. There's not much else to do at that level, and they had too many tools for a simple bulb change.

As far as the shits, ya just hang it out on the leeward side and let fly. I worked with a guy who had Crohn's disease which is a nasty gastrointestinal affliction. He utilized a bolt bucket and sent it down the line, a guy in the middle of the tower grabbed the bucket to keep it from getting hung up and wasn't too pleased. He didn't realize that "shit coming down" was meant to be taken literally

wait, you fucking poop from up top on those towers?! that is the most awesome/disgusting thing I have ever heard.

dozer wrote:wait, you fucking poop from up top on those towers?! that is the most awesome/disgusting thing I have ever heard.

HAHAHAHHAHAHA

dozer wrote:wait, you fucking poop from up top on those towers?! that is the most awesome/disgusting thing I have ever heard.

What do you think towercrane operators do when teh time comes? They sit up in that cab 12 to 16 hours a day, #2 will come to visit at some point. Most keep a small bucket with some "blue-juice" they get in a bottle from the port-o-john septic truck. C'mon Dozer, everyone here knows the question you really want to ask pertains to masturbation up there..."mast"-turbation?

My palms are sweaty just watching that.

Huh. I just did an 85' mast this afternoon and I have to say that after the first 50 feet or so it really is all the same. I think in the past I've done 120 or so.

Do you have to travel much to do this job?

my stomach is hurting.. I could never do that.

Sisyphus wrote:Huh. I just did an 85' mast this afternoon and I have to say that after the first 50 feet or so it really is all the same. I think in the past I've done 120 or so.

Do you have to travel much to do this job?

We travel pretty regularly, mostly in Washington, but I've been all over the country with the gig. The amount will vary from company to company. Companies that do radio and TV towers will tend to travel more because the sites are fewer and further between than cellular sites. Companies that do cellular work will vary depending on how many carriers they work with and the size of the local market. The more sites you can work locally the less you need to travel to find work. I spent the first three months of this year out of town, and have been out for a week here and a couple days there in the time since.

If you're thinking about looking into getting in let me know and I can poke around to see if I know anyone who knows anyone in your area worth checking out. You might ping Priest too, he used to climb.

Hell Fucking NO! I don't even like step ladders. Any toxic chemical, I'll suit up and deal with.

Heights? FUCK THAT....

I'm just thinking at this point. With winter approaching it's not the kind of gig I'd want. Northern New England (read: Maine, NH) in the winter can be pretty shitty and I'm kind of a pussy these days. But if all else fails I have a family to feed and $25/hr is pretty reasonable to me. Considering it's skilled labor and you're working for someone else that's alright.

Sisyphus wrote:I can see climbing a tower, okay. But I couldn't do it while wearing gloves.

...or pants.

tucko wrote:

Sisyphus wrote:I can see climbing a tower, okay. But I couldn't do it while wearing gloves.

...or pants.

Tucko always comes through with the truth.