Almost all radio stations use a tower of some sort to support their transmitting antennas. These towers need maintenance from time to time and only qualified people should perform maintenance on towers. Hence, the tower company is formed.
Over my years of experience, I have dealt with many different tower companies, from one-man operations to big corporations that have multiple crews out in the field on any given day. I have discovered that not all tower companies are created equal. Not only do tower climbers need to be in good physical shape and be trained correctly in all tower climbing safety procedures, they also need to be good mechanics so they can actually repair things on the tower. Climbing a 470-foot tower to repair a strobe light is all well and good. Once the climber gets to the strobe light, he needs to be able to disassemble it without dropping parts or breaking things, troubleshoot if needed, install new parts, and re-assemble the unit, again without dropping or breaking anything.
Applying RF connectors, installing an FM antenna or STL antenna, and repairing light fixtures or conduit all require some amount of manual dexterity and concentration. Assembling high-powered antennas requires close attention to detail. Any pinched O rings, cross-threaded bolts, bent bullets, and the antenna will have problems, likely at the worst possible time.
The sign of a bad tower company is if its climbers cannot carry out those tasks with one or at most two climbs. I have a situation on a tower where our FM station is a tenant. The tower has a strobe light failure near the top of the tower where our FM antenna is located. They have climbed the tower no less than four times to repair this, and it is still not fixed yet. Each time they climb, the station has to reduce power to protect the tower climbers from excessive RF exposure. Each climb it takes them several hours longer than anticipated to finish their work.
A good rule of thumb, If the defective part cannot be fixed in the first two climbs, then the entire strobe unit should be replaced on the third climb. Even though the strobe units are expensive, by the time they get done paying for all this tower work, they could have bought two new strobes. Today will be the fifth climb and there is no guarantee that it will be fixed.
I advised the tower owner that they should be looking around for another tower company because these guys aren’t exactly setting the world on fire.