Thursday, February 25, 2016

Vertigo, anyone?


Courtesy of an embed at Daily Timewaster, here's drone footage of a technician climbing 1,500 feet to do maintenance on an antenna tower near Salem, South Dakota.  Watch it in full-screen mode to get the best results.





You couldn't pay me enough to get me to do that . . .

Peter

14 comments:

Duke of URL VFM#391 said...

"Carl? Whatta you mean, you forgot the 3/8" socket and have to go back to the truck?"

B said...

Highest I've ever done is just over 1/3 that. Pretty high.

And yes, you inventory EVERYTHING before you climb. And it is all tethered so you can't kill someone when you drop it.

STxRynn said...

I lost a wrench at a 1000' once. I watched it all the way down. Missed the truck by about 100', lucky me! Took a while to find it, but no worse for the wear.

I was ground support for a buddy once, down south of Houston. He was climbing the only crippled I-beam tower still standing. He got there late, horked down a few bananas and a quart of coffee, then belted up and started climbing. Always stand on the windward side of the tower with the prevaling wind to your back if you are the ground guy. He spewed that whole coffee colored mess at about 600 feet. I didn't even see it. Lucky me!!

Most fun tho, was building the halo on a short tower on top of First Interstate in Houston. Hanging upside down about 80 stories above Houston on a nice cool night, strapping in coax. The traffic was over my head and the stars were at my feet. Well, you could only see 3 or 4 of them, but it was surreal.

On the tallest building in Houston, we were racking radios for a week or two at night. We had a strong ocean breeze blowing in the fog. My buddy took a smoke break, then hollered for me to come look. I stood on the edge of the roof, with my hands outstretched into a vertical waterfall of fog!!!! The wind was blowing it straight up the side of the building. One of the most amazing sights I've ever seen.

There are treats on occasion working on high steel...

STxRynn

Woodsterman (Odie) said...

I climbed for the telephone company and got nose bleeds above 30 feet.

Anonymous said...

That person must be able to peer into airliner windows as they fly by. No way could I do that - I wrap my toes around my heels climbing onto the roof, lol.

Sherm said...

And Kim Novak isn't even waiting on top.

John in Philly said...

I used to bet dizzy on the rare occasions I left the engineroom.

If I even tried this climb, the pucker factor pressure would be high enough to turn a charcoal briquette into a perfect diamond.

John in Philly said...

"get dizzy" not "bet dizzy" Sigh.

Chris said...

Heck, you couldn't pay me to watch it. Especially just after a frozen dinner.

Paul Campbell said...

I get the willies just watching the video!

Stu Garfath. OZ. said...

After a mere 3-ish minutes watching this, my 'Man Bits' were tingling so much I had to stop watching.

Chuck Pergiel said...

Rode the tram on pill hill (Portland, OR) today. Just standing on the upper loading platform and looking over the edge made me nervous, and it was only a hunert feet up.

Unknown said...

Climbed a couple 2000' towers in Locke CA, took about 45min to an hour and a half, under a minute to get back down.

Unknown said...

long way to climb to change a lightbulb :)