{"id":1515,"date":"2010-09-21T08:13:04","date_gmt":"2010-09-21T12:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=3928"},"modified":"2023-07-26T17:17:37","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T21:17:37","slug":"tower-safety-equipment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2010\/09\/tower-safety-equipment\/","title":{"rendered":"Tower Safety Equipment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The tower climbing video that has gone nearly viral pointed out a few things. \u00a0Climbing towers is a dangerous business, best left to those who are trained for it and have the insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is true that tower climbing contractors have the responsibility to protect their own workers while working on a client’s tower. \u00a0That does not completely absolve the tower owner from liability. \u00a0It is incumbent on the tower owner to provide a safe structure to climb. \u00a0This can mean the mechanical integrity of the tower, reduction of transmitter power while workers are in high RF energy fields, and providing the proper permanently attached safety equipment on the tower itself; \u00a0Climbing ladders, ladder safety cages, rungs, elevators, and fall arresting gear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that tower video post, I mentioned something called a safety climb.  That is a cable, usually 3\/8 inch stainless steel aircraft cable, attached, about eight inches from the climbing surface like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Western<\/a>
[<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The tower itself was built in 1959 and did not have this equipment when new.  This was a retro fit kit<\/a>, installed in 2003, I believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tower climber wears a harness with a special karabiner attached to the front and waist level. \u00a0When climbing this ladder, the karabiner slides up the cable. \u00a0If he were to fall, the karabiner has an auto-locking or braking mechanism that would stop his fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tower<\/a>
Tower safety climb, attached to climbing ladder<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Many tower climbers, especially those that have been in the business for a while, do not like these things. \u00a0When climbing, especially if one has long legs, the tendency is to bump your knees on the bottom of the next ladder rung. \u00a0This is because the belt holds the climber’s waist making it difficult to get the rear end out, away from the ladder the way most people like to climb. \u00a0The alternative is to climb with the knees spread apart, like a frog, which is hard on the hamstrings and quite literally, a pain in the ass. \u00a0However, if a tower is so equipped, it must be used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have, wherever possible, retrofitted towers with these devices. \u00a0Of course, all new towers come equipped with them.\u00a0In some situations, it is not possible to retrofit towers with safety climbs, either because there is no attachment point at the top of the tower that meets the OHSA spec, there is not a climbing ladder, or it would affect the tower tuning, as in an AM tower or near a TV or FM antenna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hundreds of gallons of ink have been spilled by Los Federals in OHSA regulations\u00a029 CFR 1926<\/a> and\u00a029 CFR 1910.268(g)<\/a> regarding fall protection and fall protection equipment for telecommunications workers. \u00a0In this litigious world, we live in, tower owners and or their on-site representatives should know these rules and make sure they are followed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The tower climbing video that has gone nearly viral pointed out a few things. \u00a0Climbing towers is a dangerous business, best left to those who are trained for it and have the insurance. It is true that tower climbing contractors have the responsibility to protect their own workers while working on a client’s tower. \u00a0That … Continue reading Tower Safety Equipment<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[33,60,110],"class_list":["post-1515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maintenance","tag-am-towers","tag-fm-tower","tag-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1515"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12311,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515\/revisions\/12311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}