[BC] New respect for tower climbers!

[Mark Earle]

WFIFeng at aol.com wrote:
> Right now, I'm watching a show on Discovery, called "Hazard pay". It's not 
> one that I normally watch... but the intro showed that they would be climbing a
>  
> 1275 foot broadcast tower, so I'm now really into it! All I can say is, "WOW!" 
> Ok, commercial's about over... back to the show.
> 
> Willie...

OK.. I'll point out there are several 2000' towers near Houston. Of 
course, those have elevators, but it's not unusual for the elevator to 
not function.. and a tower crew just goes "nuts" and climbs if necessary.

When I worked for Clear Channel, we installed a Marti remote pick up 
receiver on UHF, on the platform at 1400'. Cheap thrill to walk around 
and look down past your feet to the ground, 10' out from the tower face 
(the platforms go all the way around the tower, with 2-way radios 
mounted in weather proof cabinets). 5' of feedline loss to the antenna. 
Power comes up; there is a multi-pair phone cable to get audio down to 
the phone room if desired, which is how we did it; then a dry pair loop 
back to the studios.

Even in my small market, two of my FM's are on 1000' sticks (OK, 985' 
but close enough!) Neither of these have elevators.

I no longer do any tower work. Stopped before something went wrong. :-)

-- 
mwe

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