Posted: 5/6/2011 5:59:27 AM EDT
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I am going to install a VHF vertical for a buddy on his tower. Currently the tower has a TV antenna on it. The tower looks sound from the ground but I will inspect it as I go up. There is a large tree near that I am planning to tie off to with my climbing gear to keep from hitting the ground, and I could tie off another to keep from slamming into the tree. Thoughts?
The only antenna I have installed is on my roof. What tools will I need to remove this old antenna? Sawzal, hack saw, vice grips etc? If its rusted on or going to take too much for me to remove whats the best way to mount a 10 foot vertical on the side of this tower? The easy way would be to clamp some pvc up there and use a pulley to yank up a rollup j-pole but we are looking for more gain than that. Here is the tower. 
bad image of the top 
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First suggestion would be checking to make sure it can even hold your weight. If not properly installed there's one end to the climb you can expect and that is to wake up in the hospital as a best result. Having climbed commercially we did do some private towers on occasion (even some as small as yours). They would sway so much it was dizzying just to be up there as they swayed under our weight (and our boots wouldn't fit in the cross members of the tower). Assuming the tower can hold your weight the next thing that is as important as anything is a harness you could use to secure yourself to the tower. Unlike commercial towers where you are almost certain they can hold your weight and don't have to worry about the tower falling down being secured to a private tower like this carries its own risk if it falls and you are secured to it. If it were mine I would either see if it was installed with a pivot base and if not have it converted. That way on rare occasion you need to work on it you could have it lowered and not have to worry about climbing it at all. I hope this helps. 
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The tower is not guyed. Set in cement and tied into the roof at the gutter. There is no pivot either.
So maybe I will just go up part way, and end up pulling up a rollup j-pole. I have climbing gear but swinging into a tree trunk does not sound fun either. Unless I got 2 lines on me to keep that from happening. |
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The president of our club was taking down a 100' commercial tower. They had the first set of guys off, and was pulling the top section when it gave way. He was lucky, and left a giant ass-print on the roof of a metal building, next to the tower. It still got him a "free" ride in a helicopter, and he's still gimping around 6 months after.
BE CAREFUL. |
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The tower is not guyed. Set in cement and tied into the roof at the gutter. There is no pivot either. Well, this is moot now but I'll weigh in should anyone else be considering it. I'm not a big fan of roof mounts. Always double and triple check the hardware and the stuff it's connected to. I didn't realize how bad the wood was at the roof bracket on the last tower I was taking down. Everything was fine until the bolts popped free and I started swinging back and forth until the tower settled down. Quoted:
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Is the tower guyed? Most towers less than 100 feet are not guyed. Every tower I've climbed less than 100' has been guyed. |
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We will use the the cherry picker to put it on the tower. Ground is way to wet and soft now to get it back there. Temporary fix is just lash it to his chimney so he can get up and running. Good to know, your chances are this will be a straight forward install and life will be better than having fallen due to lack of experience with climbing towers and not recognizing this tower wasn't safe to climb. Notice I said I climbed towers a long time ago, I fell from a commercial tower while training a newbie tech. I was peeled off by high winds (gotta love the idiot lead who wouldn't allow us to call the climb off) holding a 10' dish. Made it to the end of my fall arrest and the 250 lb dish left me with something I still have today (a bad back). But I was lucky. I know a guy who fell nearly 200 foot and broke nearly every bone in his body. Only survived because we had a 10 foot snow drift at the base of the tower.
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Stay off of it if it's not moored and you don't have wings. Meh. It's no big deal being on a tower w/o guys. It just moves a little more. The guys have to get up there somehow right? Yes, having climbed both commercial and private towers. But we're not talking about an experienced climber much less one that knows what to check to ensure the tower will be able to hold one's weight. Not that anything under 100 feet needs to be guyed in order to climb it, but that swaying may contribute to the likelihood some one would fall.
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| I know one crazy fucking tower guy. If it's a nice calm day, he'll free-climb 500 feet only tying off 2 or 3 times for a rest. He likes to stand on the top of our 400' Rohn-80 and pretend to fly. But I know for a fact that he definitely would not climb that tower in the OP. |
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I know one crazy fucking tower guy. If it's a nice calm day, he'll free-climb 500 feet only tying off 2 or 3 times for a rest. He likes to stand on the top of our 400' Rohn-80 and pretend to fly. But I know for a fact that he definitely would not climb that tower in the OP. I did towers in your area and further north and didn't get to pretend it was some how cool only in the good weather. Ask him about chipping off ice while climbing up and then again on the way back down. If he doesn't look at you with some sort of clue then he really doesn't have a clue when it comes to climbing in adverse conditions. The worse place to climb towers (that I have climbed) is the UP (upper pennisula) surrounded by Lake Superior with snowfalls getting as high as 30 feet deep (obviously multiple snow storms). As far as climbing goes, when I climbed (and I'm sure that hasn't changed much) there weren't many towers you could climb tied off 100%. It kept us from qualifying for the steel worker unions because OSHA wouldn't approve the fact that you couldn't feasibly climb a tower 100% tied off (with the exception of the less common monopoles and towers high enough to have an elevator).
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