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I had a First Class Radiotelephone license with Ship's RADAR endorsement starting in 1976. That was morphed to the GROL designation. I used the license actively at Marine Electric Company in San Diego from 1977 to 1980. My customer base was 140 seiners, crab boats, work boats (tugs), seaweed harvesters, sport fishing boats, freighters and a few USN vessels with Magnavox SatNav onboard. About 30 base stations as well that belonged to the holding companies for the boats (Bumblebee, Chicken of the Sea), cargo port offices. Frequent work in the ship yards to refurbish the radios while other maintenance occurred. Not a bad lifestyle for a while. Pretty high risk cruising up masts on boats, ships and tall office buildings. I stopped before I had a fatal oops.

I never tried for the Radar endorsement, had no need for it. But for that matter, I had no need for the GROL.

I understand about the climbing thing. I still carry a climbing belt in my pickup. Seldom use it any more. I’m 68 but am still able to do most of that stuff. We have an elevator leg that I service when necessary. It has a ladder and safety ring at top, but I always belt off when changing belts or motors.

My Ham buddies used me a lot for installations. I spent 2 weekends on a broadcast tower where the local Hams had a repeater. The tower was 1550 feet tall. Our receive antenna was at 1350 ft. We replaced the 7/8” heliax between the 650 foot platform and the 1350 foot mount for the antenna. That system has been moved. An ice storm almost brought down the tower a number of years ago and the TV station pulled all the non essential feedline. Not sure where the Hams moved their repeater to, I’m no longer living in OKC.