Posted on 10/06/2011 1:24:34 PM PDT by satan69
A Job You Don’t Want: Climbing An 1,800-Foot Lightning Rod VIDEO
What’s it like being a technician who free-climbs a third-mile tall broadcast tower to go to work? Every bit as terrifying as you’d imagine.
By Ky Henderson
We could describe to you what it’s like being a technician who has to free-climb a 1,768 foot broadcasting tower with a 30-pound tool bag dangling on a rope tied to his waist, only to reach the top to do his job while balancing on about one square foot of metal. But you may as well just watch this terrifying video of it instead.
Oh, and kids? Learn a lesson from these guys and make sure you wear a helmet when you’re dangling off the top of a ladder taller than the Willis (nee Sears) Tower. It could save your life.
http://www.modernman.com/a-job-you-dont-want-climbing-an-1800-foot-lightning-rod/
(Excerpt) Read more at modernman.com ...
Many Americans would capitalize the name.
One of my best friends does this for a living - transmitter replacements, light replacements, adding equipment, etc. Yes, you do have to be a bit out of your mind to do it - he sure as heck is, but he loves it.
He told me last week about having to tie off on Monday (atop a transmission tower at about 500 ft) to await the ground crews to return with some equipment. He said he tied off, kicked back and took a nap for three hours until they returned - all the while hanging from his harness.
Now think of Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama, or the CFR, worthless people exactly commensurate with the tagline below. Or, think of our soldiers now in the sandbox, and Hillary.
And one might begin to fathom the ugliness of the LEFT (which incidentally does include much of the Wall Street Crowd).
Johnny Suntrade
The helmet cam probably makes it look worse than what it really is, but I’ll tell ya, I was squirming in my seat just watching the video.
I hope I don’t have dreams about getting stuck up there...
I would not mind too much. Above of 25ft everything feels the same. Maybe it’s just my defective stereo vision.
When I was in my 20’s I was a Lineman. Eighteen feet scared the crap out of me.
I didn’t read the article, but I would bet that he makes a nice annual salary, likely in the 6 figures plus benefits.
He also needs to be in good physical condition to make that climb, and not have a fear of heights, both of which can be “learned”
Many years ago, I helped my Brother, who has a Painting business, with an exterior painting job that required climbing up and working several stories up on the exterior of a 12 story building on outdoor scaffolding.
This was in Downtown San Francisco, with a lot of traffic, noise, horn honking, sirens, and numerous other distractions.
My Brother would be on the 7th floor of the outdoor scaffolding, walking the planks without a harness, while I was using a safety harness and walking as if I were walking barefoot with a bunch of broken glass scattered about.
After a few weeks, I got used to being up that high, walking on planks that would flex as you walked, giving you the feeling it would break every time you took a step, but I became more and more comfortable as I got used to being up as high as the 12th floor, not to mention climbing up the scaffolding, which requires one to be in good physical condition as well as using caution.
And a safety harness doesn’t guarantee safety, as I had an acquaintance have his safety harness fail and he fell to his death while working on the Golden Gate Bridge on the SF side doing earthquake retrofitting work about 10 years ago.
And yes, he was an American.
But 1800 feet? no thanks. Like the other poster said, you have to be a bit out of your mind.
Oh that is just freakin’ nuts. Truly, I think I’d rather be homeless, penniless and hungry rather than do that job! That is just lunatic.
Back in my High School days, we used to “party” on the safety nets of the Golden Gate Bridge that are in place for the maintenance workers, long before 9-11 and the security that is now in place.
If you tried to access them nowadays, you would be arrested or possibly shot on sight.
The view at night is great, but your clothes would take a beating as the “nets” were metal cabling and were covered with rust, bird crap, and other debris, so we would wear old clothes when we used to go onto the nets and they would end up covered in rust and dirt.
It was fairly easy to access the safety nets from a walkway underneath the bridge. You just had to climb over an 8’ fence to access the catwalk to the safety nets that were there for the bridge workers, as the bridge is maintained on a daily basis, mostly being painted in sections every day to prevent rusting.
I used to have a picture of a group of me and some friends on one of the nets, about 240’ above the water, but that was many years ago and I don’t know what ever happened to the pic as I would love to have it or a copy of it.
Must be fun to take a leak up there. Not so much if you have the trots.
There was a lot of things that we could do, as kids, many years ago that can't be done now. Sometimes I think that our generation was the last to experience true freedoms. For instance, I had this pellet gun, a Crossman 1400 pump action .22 caliber that had a scope on it. Looked just like any other hunting rifle. When I came home from school, I'd grab it, and head down to the nearest woods. I would walk down the street with this rifle in my arms. The cops never bothered me and my neighbors never complained. In fact, the cops would ride right by me on some occasions, and so long as you weren't swinging it around by the barrel, they would simply leave you alone. That's quite atestament considering that we're talking about Massachusetts here.
There is absolutely no way that a kid could do that now without having a fleet of Police cruisers bearing down on them.
Things have really changed in this country.
I still have a Crosman .177 caliber pellet pistol that uses C02 cartridges and the “cylinder” holds 11 pellets.
It’s modeled after a .357 revolver with a 5 or 6 inch barrel and it’s very accurate.
IDK if the seals are still good as I haven’t fired it in about 10 years, but I might buy some C02 cartridges and a box of .177 pellets and set up a target in the yard and have some fun with it if it still holds pressure from the C02 gas.
The seals on your .357 are probably no good and need to be replaced. Do that and it'll probably work just like it used to. From the research I've done so far, the seals can found in a good hardware store, like ACE, even the quad seals, although I'm not sure if a CO2 has quad seals.
I've gotten some of my parts from Alan at AB Airgun.
Here's the link:
AB Airgun
Alan Schweitzer and his wife Becky are great people and a joy to do business with. They even send you the parts first and then you send back the invoice with payment. They'll even restore the gun themselves if you want and they told they do a lot of work on old Crossman's. I'm not sure if they do pistols, but I don't see why not.
There are other places on the net also.
It'll probably cost me more to restore it, than it would if I just bought another one outright, and they are out there, but you have to have a registered dealer to buy it for you. Fed Regs, and all that. Hell, I can remember when they sold them at local department stores. I don't even think you can buy the pellets now without being a certain age.
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