Alfred, My thoughts exactly.
If Rohn tower is able to be stacked to 180' as their catalog says
there has to be a way to safely climb the things. With the advice I
received from this forum I bought a 6', it's tough to find any shorter
length, shock absorbing "Y" lanyard with 3 hooks. One for my
harnesses' backside and two bigger hooks that will fit around two
different tower legs.
I used to foolishly connect to the Z braces, but not anymore.
If I am hooking around the tower legs instead, at least, I'll have to
break FOUR Z brace welds each foot I fall as I plummet down the tower.
That should slow my decent. I am not an engineer, but I know gravity
pulls straight down and that is the tower's strongest direction. If
one 10' section fails there is another below it to then pick up slack
for the now slowed KB3X.
When a Z's corner weld fails, it seems to me that bar would bend and
be open, and then I would hit the next weld, and then the next, then
the next, and so on.
I searched on Google for ham accidents and it seems the accidents
occur in three categories:
1. Ham screwed up by using only a belt without a harness, or wore nothing.
2. Ham contacted power lines.
3. The tower structurally failed from rust, having its' guys broken
by falling objects, or disconnected.
I can't find anything were someone fell with the right gear and still
crashed to the ground.
But that doesn't mean it never happened.
> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:11:01 -0500
> From: "Alfred Frugoli" <ke1fo@arrl.net>
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Climbing and working on Rohn 25g/45g towers -
> What is difficult in this entire conversation for me is that I'm not an
> engineer - I'm trained as a manager and I'm an amateur radio operator by
> choice. You can talk about specs and theory all you want. What I need to
> know is where do I connect my fall arrest lanyard. It seems to me that no
> matter where you connect to on xxG tower you're connecting to a cross
> brace. If I connect directly on the cross brace, obviously I'm on the cross
> brace. If I connect on the tubular vertical member and I fall, the force
> still rests on the z bracing where it is welded to the vertical tube.
>
> So, how does one safely connect their fall arrest lanyard on xxG tower?
> Must it be connected to multiple legs to be safe?
>
> A pictoral tutorial of this information would be helpful. My knot book with
> diagrams, pictures and drawings is invaluable to me - is there such a thing
> for tower rigging and climbing?
>
> 73 de Al, KE1FO
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