And you thought free-soloing a cliff was sketchy...

ryanmakescoffee wrote:I climbed towers for a year and a half in the Southeast US. Best job I've ever had. I only made $15/hr (w/ no previous experience) but OSHA was never an issue, we would climb with boomboxes blaring, had a ton of fun.

Why don't OSHA rules re. fall protection apply? Hell, the employees at the local Home Depot can't ride a telescoping platform 8 ft up without a full body harness and fall arrester.

The tool bag is actually a bag full of jiffy pop. Once you hear the kernels pop its time to get off the tower

I wonder if that dude is Seminole... Take this however you want to, but I had a friend of the family, who was REALLY old at the time, talk about Seminoles working the hi rise ironworks back in the 30's and 40's. According to "my source" these guys were absolutely fearless in terms of heights. They would walk out hundreds of feet in the air on six inch or smaller beams without any hesitation.

There's no way I'd take that job. Give me a rock any day.

I couldn't see the video, but I'll give my take on the industry.

I've been a Structural Engineer for the Telecommunications, Broadcast, and Water Tank industry for almost 10 yrs. I've worked at 3 different tower companies and owned one of those companies. I've designed and analyzed, inspected towers and foundations, and trained climbers and engineers on how to do this line of work in nearly every part of the US. My current company does design-build for tower modifications so I've seen every side of this industry.

Why a helmet? Because it f'n hurts when you step up into a antenna mount, mount pipe, or threaded rod. Ospreys love to poop on you in the Southeast on water tanks, and your always dropping stuff on your partner and vice-versa.

Why the gloves? Because climbing galvanized steel 5/8" diameter rungs, angle members, etc... will peel all the skin off your hands after about 1,000-ft of climbing.

Antenna and Radiation? Panel antennas(cell phone) no worries because they are directional and it's difficult to stand in front of them, microwave dishes (see panel antennas), omni & dipoles antennas are very low power, and studies have shown there is nothing to worry about.

The big boys: FM, AM towers, Broadcast? FM and Broadcast have to either be shut down completely, or turned down to very low levels and then you can only stay in that zone for a short time period. We use RF meters to check that they are off when we are up there. Site owners love to tell you they are off and then switch them back on when you get up in the air. AM towers will zap your ass and sometimes put you in the hospital if you are grounded when you grab onto the tower. Good indicators that FM and Broadcast are on is that you can literally feel your body heating up (yes like a microwave), your camera will go fuzzy on the digital screen, and if it's high power broadcast antennas will arc and electrocute you if you are too close.

Safety climbs and ladders? OSHA and the TIA standard has guidelines for the design of these devices, and are supposed to be on towers. However 500'+ towers have about 50% installed. With a load factor of 1.5 to the design step bolts are designed for a 250 lb load and ladders have a 500 lbs vertical load and a 100 lb horizontal load in case you're interested.

Elevators? Typically on 1,000' + towers. SKETCHY!!! They rarely work, and on numerous occasions have left me stranded on top of a 2,000' tower so that I had to downclimb the ladder back to the ground.

Is it safe? The media says it's one of the most dangerous jobs. NC had the highest number of deaths 4 yrs ago. All of them were construction related that could have been easilty avoided. One guy hooked his work position lanyard over a fiberglass omni antenna during a night install weighted it and the antenna broke sending him 400' to his death and another dumbass hooked it too the guy wires wasn't paying attention and leaned back, ultimately zip-lining too his death straight into an anchor rod.

Is the job fun? Yes & No.
The Bad: Your always in the North working in the Winter, and in Texas and the Southeast in the Summer. Lightning storms, radial ice, wind, heat, cold, wasps/bees, bandits robbing your car while your up 1,000' up, being in the middle of nowhere for a week, crappy gas station food for lunch most of the time, bad/wrong directions to the tower site, lazy coworkers that look up porn on the trip, etc... Sound fun?
The Good: The views are amazing from the top of towers, traveling all over the US, the frequent flyer miles are all mine, getting paid to climb, getting done early and going to different climbing gyms, staying over the weekend and going climbing to places like J-Tree, Smith Rock, Bishop, etc...

The Pay? $12-$20 and a buttload of overtime which is mainly spending most of those hrs in the car traveling, or one a plane is what I paid people. Pay depends on your skill set: Are you an engineer (you don't have to be)? Fear of heights? Attention to detail? Do you know AutoCAD(can you learn)? Can you take good notes and measurements?

If anyone is looking for a job PM me. My current company is not yet hiring, but I know several companies from Boulder to Raleigh, NC that are always hiring and I'd be glad to direct you to them.

excellent post, jarther!

Why was the other climbers identity hidden?

$12-$20 is nothing...why is the pay so low?

gary ohm wrote:I wonder if that dude is Seminole... Take this however you want to, but I had a friend of the family, who was REALLY old at the time, talk about Seminoles working the hi rise ironworks back in the 30's and 40's..

Likely Mohawk, not Seminole. And the Mohawks took it very proudly. The Smithsonian has a lot on the Mohawk tradition of steel working.

JML wrote:Wwhy is the pay so low?

Because people will do it for that rate.

$12 is for someone that tyically brings absolutely no skills to the table, but has the ability to learn, travel without complaint, and can take measurements and good photos. With overtime this comes out to be about $32,000. (I NEVER paid someone this low. My minimum was $16)

$20 is for someone with a Civil Engineering degree, someone that could do engineering design and analysis, knows AutoCAD, inspect, and map towers. I just started on the construction side last year. With overtime this is around $50,000. My line of work involved mapping, inspections, and engineering. If you think for one second that a Civil Engineer makes more than $50,000 with a BSCE then think again. I am a member of ASCE and receive the Civil Engineer magazines and others and they list the pay scale every year for the Civil Engineering profession. Plus Civil Engineers especially Structural are in very low demand right now because nothing is getting built. Just ask any Architect how busy they've been the past 2 yrs.

At least with the companies that I worked for we had no per-diem, but I always tried to stay in a reasonable hotel and ate reasonable meals. Meaning I could still stay at the Hampton Inn/Holiday Inn Express which is typically $125/night, we were usually on the run for morning and afternoon so it was either the hotel for breakfast, or sometimes a restaurant (depends on my time constraint), Subway/Quiznos for lunch, and just about anywhere I wanted for dinner.

Typically I was gone M-W every week and in the office the other times doing reports. Since I was always gone I saved a ton of money because my trip, food, and lodging were on the company dime. My family lives back in NC and with all the flights with Southwest Airlines and an 18 month rollover, free hotels, and car rentals that cut out all of my expenses to go back home, travel vacations for me and my wife, and funding free climbing trips.

Some people will still complain about how "low" the pay is, but when I was not on the manager side I never saw it this way and the people that I worked with also never complained about this either because we realized the big picture at the end of the day.

DISCLAIMER: Not every company will pay those rates. Most of them are lower. Many companies out there will have you out in the field for weeks at a time and have really crappy per diem's. Companies like this will have high turnover with the employees. If you are thinking about the construction of towers unless you are a foreman the pay and per diem is terrible and you will always be away from home and too tired at the end of the day to do anything. This is not conducive to being a rockclimber. Oh yeah, the mapping, inspections, and constuction side of this job sucks for meeting women.

jarthur wrote:If you think for one second that a Civil Engineer makes more than $50,000 with a BSCE then think again. I am a member of ASCE and receive the Civil Engineer magazines and others and they list the pay scale every year for the Civil Engineering profession.

IF that's true, then that's, well... sad. You can make that fresh out of school with a BSME.

cenews.com/magazine-article…

imnotclever wrote: cenews.com/magazine-article…

Interesting how those with 4-7 years of experience make less than those with 2-4. "I am sorry, you have been working for us too long, we are going to have to give you a pay cut".

OSHA rules do apply, these guys are idiots. I'm a SPRAT level 1 rope access tech, that climbing would never fly in a good operation. A tower like that would be climbed like any other multi-pitch climb.