I did work at a site that looked almost identical that was originally a Lattice Communications relay site built in the 80s. It still had all the old microwave equipment in it. We had the 12 and 15 ft microwave dishes taken off and the farmer used them for cattle feeders. Converted to a WISP tower. Amazingly well built tower this one was 423ft after taking 5000 - 6000 lb off the tower it still sited true and only needed very marginal guy adjustment.
There were a lot of towers of that description in Tennessee and Kentucky that had been either abandoned (equipment and all) or purchased by one of the "Vertical Realtors" that were emerging during the early 80s. The video in the above video had been abandoned after passing through several barely visible companies. This one has been taken over by a Tennessee county government agency after more than 5 years with no tower lighting and no response from the only name that came up as owner. We replaced the lighting system with LED or Strobe. I can't remember which but it was an "ITL-LLC" system and re-registered. I believe that tower is also 450 feet but I'd have to look it up. This was only one dish removal and a bit of a breath-holder. The scariest one was the 12 foot dish mounted on the very top of the tree-jungle-bound structure. We had to have the rural power company disconnect a 7500 volt power primary line for a week to get the top dish down. I lost a lot of money on this job but kept my word and got it cleaned off. I'm quite glad it's over and we're making some maintenance income occasionally. It's only 18 miles from our shop thank heavens. John (BTW: Fiber Optic cable made the microwave sites used by pipelines and other telemetry sites obsolete and put some of the older microwave technicians out of work. Thus the equipment became useless.}
Been watching your videos for several years now. And finally get to drive passed some I've seen you working on in videos. On our way to mt. Juliet and the 800ft tower. Removing waveguide and tv stick and installing new one.
Thanks for the comment. This job was a real pain and two other crews let me down until I finally got my crew on the site. The use of my crew would have come sooner but I'd had an injury that put me in the hospital for 67 days. No, I didn't fall from a tower; I fell from a tree while trying to rescue a kitten who didn't want to be rescued. I'm ok today but haven't climbed any more trees since then.
Could not help but notice the home made lanyard towards the end of the video up top side. Good video. Just flew three antennas for a local internet company today. 300$ day for two hours of work.
No home made lanyards in that video. The tail hanging down is an adjustable positioning lanyard from Petzl. The Fall Lanyard came from a manufacturer. I believe it was an Elk River deceleration lanyard but I'm not sure. I use a sort of "home made" positioning lanyard. Once the rope wore out on the Grillion I replaced the 14mm rope with a 5/8" rope. My fall protection is all Elk River or DBI Sala but my personal positioning lanyard (fall prevention) is a hybrid. The picture accompanying the comment was taken by me while I was on the ground. Those are some monster dishes.
And I appreciate your comments. I enjoy editing and publishing the videos as much as I enjoy the challenge of the work. We've had to pull off this site for now due to a massive FM burnout at another location. I hope to have a little video of lowering the antenna elements on that project this weekend.
exactly! i'm working at a company with at least 20 antennas at our tower, since we are at middle of a city, we just finished our dark fiber connection to pretty much all of the antenna destination, but i still keep them high since they look so cool.
@@president8 In Pittsburgh on Rt. 279 There is a Concrete Tower that was for AT&T and my dad got to go through it. It was a Microwave Tower. Now its sold to someone else. I haven't been that way for awhile, but it would be interesting to see if the Drums are still on it.
@@Showgirlable I believe you are talking about the tower on troy hills, a relative of mine was in the airforce and said those towers were used for AT&T And Air Force radar. In 1989 they demolished one near mutual ohio and he went in the back of a jet to grab a cup of coffee and heard the pilots say we are now flying over the mutual tower, he also used to see the tower way over the trees from the house he grew up in.
@@ajjacksonthelonglinestower8073 I wish I could show your comment to my Dad. He passed away on Thursday we buried him yesterday. Every time I will pass that tower I will remember him. I figured the tower here in Pittsburgh could not be the only Tower that was made of concrete.
@@Showgirlable sorry for your loss, they were made of concrete in 1949 because steel was in short supply for the war effort. In 1948 they only built six roundish concrete towers before switching to the more firmiliar square cement towers. There only 2 of the six round towers still exist today. Did your dad work for AT&T, you got some good info of the troy hill tower station.
Today everything is IP based. I wish it was still analog and at a reasonable price. I had to change out an entire law enforcement system when my analog MW started having problems. A new system for six sites would have cost around $260K. For that amount I could replace all the car and portable radios for about $270 and get more options and better coverage. Times they are a changing, but the only thing in life is "change". Might as well get used to it. :-) I'm 75 by the way. :-)
Thanks for the comment. This job was a real pain and two other crews let me down until I finally got my crew on the site. The use of my crew would have come sooner but I'd had an injury that put me in the hospital for 67 days. No, I didn't fall from a tower; I fell from a tree while trying to rescue a kitten who didn't want to be rescued. I'm ok today but haven't climbed any more trees since then.
Ahh.. I hope it all works out sir.. Appreciate all the insights. If you ever need an extra hand (IT person) Do let me know Telecom works. Is my dream job Thank you so much. Humson.
Yep those large dishes are like kites! We had to wait until 5 am on a Sunday to lift a 10 ft radiowaves dish for 11GHz Public Safety link 75ft...winds started at 7 am but dish was already mounted...aligned it few days later when winds subsided...fingers can get crushed!!! Nice job on removal... very dangerous...
+Steve Holsten Thanks for the comment. I wish I had more time to create more videos but at the moment the work and some personal commitments keep me from editing and uploading new videos. If you just found the site there are 98 public videos. Seeing all those should take a while.
Removing spare antennas is really a though work, I think dismentalling work is much more difficult and risky than fresh installation. The riggers are brave people.
You are absolutely correct Mian. If the people removing some portion of the tower were not the same people who installed it those removing big loads have no idea how the load is going to react until the point of no return. It is usually a very nervous time when that last bolt is removed and the rigging is the only thing holding 1200 pounds or more. For many years riggers had to figure out the entire problem. Today many rigging plans are designed and signed off by licensed engineers. In the past riggers often calculated everything and turned out to be wrong. There's a very interesting well studied case of a 1500 foot tall tower near Houston Texas that fell when a load calculation went wrong while hoisting the new TV antenna to the top of the tower. You can download the study at the following link. www.onlineethics.org/Resources/Cases/collapse.aspx
What are you using for a trolley line and what size is the trolley block. Were you unable to get more head room on the load line? It looks like all the weight is on the trolley.
Ah, finally an intelligent question. :-) First problem is that the tower was abandon by the original owner and is situated in an overgrown woods. Secondly, a 14 KV service line runs diagonally across the access drive, making placement of the hoist problematical. We had the electric company put covers on the line. When we go back I'm going to have them take the line down completely while we get the last dish. The trolley line was merely 5/16 double braid rope tensioned by a cat-head. Load is shared by cathead and hoist but mostly the hoist. There is virtually no room on the tower to rig anything but we had made things worse by making some serious mistakes rigging this one which lead to a lot of time, caution and effort getting it off the tower. The trolley block is break rated for 24 Kn with a working load of 10 Kn (about a ton if the load isn't accelerating). The tower has the serious torque arms you see Eric sitting on and there's no room to rig a traditional gin pole. There's still one dish on the top at 350 feet. We will be using different rigging to get it off. The job has been delayed by another job that kept us tied up all summer. By the way, the main lifting power is by a Hydradine double drum hoist capable of 12,000 pounds. Sometimes these things are easy, sometime they aren't.
You guys looked good doin it. Late comment here, but it looked as though you had a heel block at the base of the tower and rope run up to your top block? I like that, straight pull to your cathead or winch and having a trolly line helps with headroom or obstructions. Always professional displays in your videos. ...That tower looked due for a repainting.
I genuinely appreciate the comment. I'm a fan of "heel blocks". I'm also a fan of the "trolley" system. It doesn't matter which way the wind is blowing and you don't end up doubling the strain on the rope or cable by using a tag line. I answer just about all the comments coming to this channel. I had some cell guy commenting on another video by saying, "You wouldn't last one day on my crew". I think I replied that I was happy not to have to rely on him for a job. :-) On the internet comments can come from a 12 year old pretending to be someone else. I've had very few idiotic comments but yours is a breath of fresh air. It shows your knowledge of how things need to be done. This was one pain in the neck job while I was trying to get over Rotor Cuff surgery. All I could do is stand by, make video from the ground and feel helpless about the outcome. I believe in trusting the guys I've trained. By the way, the lighting system was changed to white strobe day/red night and while the steel may not be pretty there's no rust or evident damage so painting, now that there's white strobe in daylight, is no longer necessary. John
These belonged to a gas pipeline operator. They converted to fiber and then abandoned their towers. One of the counties near us took it over after it had set for more than 5 years with no lighting and no one to answer the phone when the FAA called. It now has a strobe system.
@@jhettish I ❤ strobing towers! I wonder if a bunch of Dance kids would show up slam on some Techno and start dancing! A Hospital I go to has a FIELD of 5 or 6 of those towers and its FUN to watch them at night!
@@Showgirlable Never thought of "dancing" around the towers. Usually there's debris and barbed wire protecting the base and anchors of these structures. As for Techno, my favorite band used to be "Clean Bandit" but only two founders of that band remain today. :-) As for towers there are times when "There's No Place I'd Rather Be" John
Have you ever climed any of those AT&T microwave towers before I've seen videos of people removing those old horn antennas and I heard they weigh about 1 ton, so they are kinda hard to take down. If I had an AT&T microwave tower I would preserve it.
Hello. I know it's been a long time but finally an answer. My Company is Middle Tennessee Two-way Inc, a two way radio sales and service company with tower services and radio system design and creation. Basically, I'm a long time radio technician who until recently told my wife I'd stop climbing. Thus no new videos in a long time even though I plan to create some more. I tell people that I haven't climbed any higher than 950 feet since September 23rd 2019 but that I was much younger then. I was only 74.
Definitely local guys. Since we don't travel far out of Middle Tennessee these guys get to spend time with their kids and wives. Clay coaches a lot of Little-League sports and is very active in his church. Garrett is a youth minister in his church. These guys have no desire to challenge fate and are not adrenaline junkies. We have a new local guy coming to work Monday morning. We'll just have to see how he does. John
Thumbs up John and the crew,,,I've always wanted to know this,,,and that being,,,the venal covering that covers the microwave dishes,,,do they tend to distort the signal a bit?if you could please answer me that question as well,,,,much success in further filming,,,
The vinyl covering is only to keep weather and other objects out of the antenna and does not distort the signal. The manufacturer and the engineers who designed these antennas took great pains to make sure these were the best antennas, with the highest gain possible. We are on another project for the next couple of weeks but will come back to this tower. We're going to disassemble the dishes and sell them for aluminum scrap. When we disassemble the dishes I'll try to get video of the various parts of the dishes and post it here.
John Hettish Wow.I didn't know they were made of aluminum.Or parts are.Anyway,they should bring quiet a bit being aluminum.Thanks for the vid and btw,good job on the steady camera work.If there is one thing I dislike is a shaking camera.
On the topic of Guy Wires. What would be the depth of a Guy Wire say for a 1000 ft tower. I have a T.V. Station behind my home in London Ontario Canada and always wondered. Tower was erected in 1957
+Tyler Copeland I don't really know but I think they do. Most of these towers are no longer in use due to the availability of fiber-optic lines and high capacity Wireless Backhaul radios. Towers and microwave equipment is very expensive to maintain. If the fiber-optic line goes down simply call the phone company (or other vendor) and have them fix it. I will tell you that after the experience with this tower I no longer think seeing these dishes on towers is cool. Removing them was a real pain, costly and at times downright scary. They did "salvage" well though. John
Is that a Gabriel or RFS dish.I always hated both of them. Hard to assemble, hang, align test and remove.Andrew was the best.My longest hop was 90 miles. No cell phones back then. The Motorola radio walkie talkies wouldn't make the trip, But we got the path in and green.
Yep, all six of the 10 footers were Gabriel dishes. The absolute worse one was the highest. The tower is hemmed in by forest and I had to get the electric company to take down the primary feed line that ran diagonally across the only place to rig. We used a 12,500 pound hoist to remove five of them then a little 5000 pound Hydradyne with the loud Honda gas motor to get the last one down. It took experienced riggers I brought in to help two days to rig, maneuver, secure then re-rig the toughest one so we could finally wrap up that job. Fortunately for us the tower was only 20 miles from our shop. It was a miserable job and tonight I have a potentially miserable job on a midnight climb. It justs goes on and on, doesn't it. John
It's just like MCI but this one was an abandoned pipeline monitoring site. This was the worse job I ever took on and hope to never do that again. The tower was surrounded by trees and the only driveway had a 7500 volt primary line diagonally across it. I had the electric company take it down for the duration and called in a NOTAM on the light. John
I've never used a static line for a trolley. I've always trolleyed back to load when possible and i see you can't do that being your using a heel block. Does that setup have to do with the weight of the dish? Does that method work more effective when lowering a load at keeping it off the tower? or just less stress on the structure? Sorry for all the questions its just very rare to come across a journeymen tower worker lol
Hello Tristan, The following is pretty long and I hope you get something out of it. Using a static trolley line is quite handy when handling heavy loads, and on occasion, even light ones. The drawback when handling light loads is the amount of time it takes to rig the static line. Obviously it's a second line and rigging two lines takes longer. Even with light loads there's a time when a static trolley line is almost mandatory. When working in a wind, high enough to be troublesome but not high enough to be too dangerous to climb, a static trolley line allows rigging to the windward side of the structure. The main idea is to keep the load away from the structure until it gets where it needs to be. Let's say you have a tower with only one way to rig due to physical space constraints on the ground. We probably run into that more often than cell guys do but I'm sure they have that problem occasionally. Let's go on to say the wind is out of the north but the only place to rig is the north side of the tower. A static trolley line can be rigged on the side the wind is coming from and the load can be controlled going up or coming down quite easily from that position. Another scenario would be when having to bring load to various heights on a tower. This year we had to replace rigid coax starting from 700 feet and down to 300 feet above ground level. The site had limited rigging opportunities. We were able to trolley the first piece down from 700 feet, slack the trolley and place the piece where our ground man wanted it. Later when we were replacing the rigid line we could send the piece up the tower, slack the trolley and put it right into the hands of whoever was on the tower at that time. Regardless of the wind the trolley kept the load off the tower until we got it where it needed to be. Take a look at this video, beginning at 5 minutes. ua-cam.com/video/3Gs8YI31J2M/v-deo.html In this video we're removing 20 foot long, 85 pound, section of rigid coax and sending it to the ground. We do this one piece at a time. At about 5:20 in the video you will see the trolley being slacked and the equipment we need to remove this piece moving to the tower. As the video goes on you will see me attach the piece of rigid to the load line, the trolley being tensioned and the piece of rigid moving away from the tower and then going down to the ground. I didn't publish any video of replacing the sections but the process was the same, only in the reverse. What you described is something we use all the time. In my company we call that a "self tag" in that the load is trolleyed back to the load line. If we didn't put a tag on the trolley block it can be a problem, if the wind is trying to blow the load back into the tower. Pulling the load away from the tower we have to pull back on the load line which makes the load go back up if we're lowering or go up too quickly if we're lifting. Even if we did put a tag on the trolley block we're putting extra downward force on the load line by tagging the line. Using a static trolley we're lifting or lowering the load without generating extra force. Ok, you're probably tired of reading now. I hope this made sense. We use your method more than a static trolley line but the work we do does demand the static trolley line quite often. In some instances you can use a guy wire as a trolley line also but only if you know the guy wire will take the load without stress and if you have enough rope. John
thank you so much for the reply. Ive been doing cell work for 8 years and its rare to come across a seasoned tower work let alone a true professional. Yes everything you said made perfect sense. Like i said i never had a opportunity to learn the trade from anyone and i was pretty much learned through trial and error . I often think back to when i got in the industry and cringe when i think about the rigging on the first booms i flew.
I can understand your "cringing" especially today when booms are completely set up on the ground with radios, TMAs , antennas and other stuff, then hoisted fully loaded to the mounting point. One guy was decapitated in Kentucky when a loaded boom broke something in the rigging and fell on him. Of course he shouldn't have been under the load but I wonder if anyone ever told him about such things. The problem in the cell industry is that most guys don't get the chance to become "seasoned" and the work is generally so similar site to site that innovation doesn't seem necessary. That's only my opinion. I'm guessing that most cell guys are hired for a buildout and when the buildout is finished they're unemployed, having learned only one aspect of tower work. Here's the first video (of 2) that tend to reinforce my opinion of cell work. www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/cell-tower-deaths/ In my company we face all sorts of different things when doing our jobs. There are similarities, but how to do the work seems to change from job to job and that's one of the things I love about it. I'm 72 years old. In the video I recommended the camera was on my helmet. You may have noticed we (Garrett and I) worked slowly and deliberately. We never "hurry up". Here's another video you might find interesting, especially the first part where the brother of the decapitated worker uses the phrase, "he knew what he was doing". Here's the link. ua-cam.com/video/MMfOEo_C5FM/v-deo.html
Yea your pretty much stop on and so is the pbs on tower work. The job dead line is always immediate if not sooner and the average guy in the industry is probably early to mid 20's. So you throw inexperience and all the testosterone as well as the push to complete jobs and its amazing there aren't more deaths really. I can remember not long ago i was that young guy who thought he knew it all and its really quite amazing i never got hurt or worse. 5 companies in 5 years till i found a stable job that was close to home. I'm with you though, I'm a foreman at my company and i don't have to but i still climb every day because i love it. I still learn new thing
Climb every day if and when you can. It will keep you in physical shape. You want to know the quality of the work being done by your crew. Photos don't always tell the whole story. Keep in mind that a photo often leaves a lot of bad stuff out depending on who the photographer is. Also, leadership by example works. It doesn't mean you sweep the floor because others won't. It means you call them all together, pass out brooms and then pick up one yourself. From a 72 year old who hasn't been higher than 800 feet so far the best advice I can give is do not smoke. Personally, having been around heavy smokers my entire life, I see smoking as the worse addiction there is. I've never smoked and I'm pretty sure that's why I can still do it. Obviously as a crew leader you have other things to do but training is a big part of effective leadership. I've always crawled out on the 6' boom to change an antenna while the newbie watched. That gives him confidence and he doesn't have to figure out a way to accomplish the task while in a stressful situation. You probably have someone you consider your assistant crew leader. He should also be leading by example. I do have a question for you. When you watched the PBS video and the OSHA inspector was at the site where a worker had fallen he leaned back from the fence and said, "I wonder what he must have been thinking while he was falling", what thought went through your head? Just curious if it was the same reaction I had. John
The antenna in the video was only 200 feet up the tower but you can see there's another dish higher than that. The top dish was in a very awkward place and it took us two days to get that one down. The tower itself is either 300 or 350 feet. I can't remember and don't feel like looking in my records. We used 3/8 19 strand Stainless Steel cable (two drum hoist) for lifting and a 5/16" double braid rope for a trolley.
Trisha Jackson that’s cool! I have an AT&T lightguide fiber optic splice boot that I got from my local Consolidated Communications office, my dad works there and they don’t care if I take any of the old stuff.
I'm guessing it was in the 6Ghz range. There are no labels on the dishes themselves. I also salvaged the microwave equipment but ended up scrapping all but the racks it was mounted in.
Nope, "guy" wires. Don't feel badly though. Many people, especially here in the southern US, think the same thing. They are used to "guy" the tower. "A guy-wire, guy-line, or guy-rope, also known as simply a guy, is a tensioned cable designed to add stability to a free-standing structure. They are used commonly in ship masts, radio masts, wind turbines, utility poles, fire service extension ladders used in church raises and tents." John
Yes, 12 foot and 900 pounds. The tower is in the woods with a very small gravel road leading to it and there is one remaining dish. The top dish on the back side is really giving us fits. We'll get it eventually, hopefully without hiring a helicopter. :-)
Usually a tower will get repainted around 10 years. This tower has gone long past that period but we had the lighting scheme changed with the Federal Aviation Agency. We run white strobe during the day and red strobe at night. If white strobes are used during the day painting is not necessary any more. Painting is really expensive to the tower owner and a rather expensive business with high liability for damage to adjacent property from blown paint drops. A new strobe system installed on a 300 foot tower is around $6000. Painting at $10 to $100 per foot can get expensive really quick. I'm guessing that the tower in question would have probably cost the customer $20 to $25 per foot and it's 300 feet tall. My company doesn't and never will paint. I prefer to sub-contract painting. John
slippery396 I'm thinking it's 6Ghz. These had been abandoned and the labels were worn off. The main thing I was interested in at that point was how heavy the things were and removing them very carefully.
Amit Dev I agree, probably 6 GHz. Wow, a 12-foot dish at 6 GHz probably had a HPBW of less the 0.5 degrees. Hope the tower didn’t twist by more than about +-0.1 degrees during wind gusts.
Too dangerous to drop a 1200 pound load 350 feet to the ground. As falling items fall they increase their speed. I wish I could give you a number right now but I can't. Needless to say the shock (impact) weight would be much greater than 1200 pounds when the dish met the ground.
Show? Good or bad? That particular tower was a pain in my rear and I underbid taking the dishes down not realizing the size and weight they were. Live and learn I guess.....I hope. Thanks for the comment............I think. :-)
Always be safe. I'm sure you already know that climbing is not the biggest part of what we do. It's all about the work we do once we've climbed the tower. Everyone goes home at night. John
There are more than 110 videos on my channel. Just google "John Hettish". You'll find two channels. The tower channel has over 3500 subscribers. The other is miscellaneous videos and it has about 50 subscribers. It ought to be pretty obvious which channel is which but feel free to look at both. :-)
Would anyone be interested in a safer more efficient way to install or remove large objects from towers. With cranes reaching to 200' why not attach the Cranemate 10' lg 1500 capacity hydraulically rotation 180 and hydraulic leveling work platform. Even has a 1000 lbs mini jib winch crane. See it at www.reachallplatforms.com
Bonjour mon ami, Puisque vous parlez français, vous devriez pouvoir trouver du travail au Canada dans la province de Québec. À ma connaissance, c'est la langue principale dans cette province. Partout ailleurs, c'est l'anglais. Google Traduction
Vous êtes bienvenue. Bonne chance dans votre recherche de nouveaux travaux. Maintenant, tout ce dont vous avez besoin, c'est d'un billet d'avion, mais il serait préférable de prendre contact avec une entreprise qui s'engage dans le travail de la tour dans la province canadienne du Québec. Google Translation
malheureusement l Algérie ce n est plus un payé stable et c est pour cela que je vous quitté ce balade j vous ce qui il ya de mieux pour ma famille merci de bien vouloir e me comprendre ci vous pouvais m aidé car je suis un très bon bosseur dans le domaine
I did work at a site that looked almost identical that was originally a Lattice Communications relay site built in the 80s. It still had all the old microwave equipment in it. We had the 12 and 15 ft microwave dishes taken off and the farmer used them for cattle feeders. Converted to a WISP tower. Amazingly well built tower this one was 423ft after taking 5000 - 6000 lb off the tower it still sited true and only needed very marginal guy adjustment.
There were a lot of towers of that description in Tennessee and Kentucky that had been either abandoned (equipment and all) or purchased by one of the "Vertical Realtors" that were emerging during the early 80s. The video in the above video had been abandoned after passing through several barely visible companies. This one has been taken over by a Tennessee county government agency after more than 5 years with no tower lighting and no response from the only name that came up as owner. We replaced the lighting system with LED or Strobe. I can't remember which but it was an "ITL-LLC" system and re-registered. I believe that tower is also 450 feet but I'd have to look it up. This was only one dish removal and a bit of a breath-holder. The scariest one was the 12 foot dish mounted on the very top of the tree-jungle-bound structure. We had to have the rural power company disconnect a 7500 volt power primary line for a week to get the top dish down. I lost a lot of money on this job but kept my word and got it cleaned off. I'm quite glad it's over and we're making some maintenance income occasionally. It's only 18 miles from our shop thank heavens. John (BTW: Fiber Optic cable made the microwave sites used by pipelines and other telemetry sites obsolete and put some of the older microwave technicians out of work. Thus the equipment became useless.}
Thanks for sharing your experience sir! Very much appreciated 🙏🏾
Been watching your videos for several years now. And finally get to drive passed some I've seen you working on in videos. On our way to mt. Juliet and the 800ft tower. Removing waveguide and tv stick and installing new one.
Maximum Respect and a huge thank you for doing this type of work.
Thanks for the comment. This job was a real pain and two other crews let me down until I finally got my crew on the site. The use of my crew would have come sooner but I'd had an injury that put me in the hospital for 67 days. No, I didn't fall from a tower; I fell from a tree while trying to rescue a kitten who didn't want to be rescued. I'm ok today but haven't climbed any more trees since then.
Could not help but notice the home made lanyard towards the end of the video up top side. Good video. Just flew three antennas for a local internet company today. 300$ day for two hours of work.
No home made lanyards in that video. The tail hanging down is an adjustable positioning lanyard from Petzl. The Fall Lanyard came from a manufacturer. I believe it was an Elk River deceleration lanyard but I'm not sure. I use a sort of "home made" positioning lanyard. Once the rope wore out on the Grillion I replaced the 14mm rope with a 5/8" rope. My fall protection is all Elk River or DBI Sala but my personal positioning lanyard (fall prevention) is a hybrid. The picture accompanying the comment was taken by me while I was on the ground. Those are some monster dishes.
I'm glad we finally got the last one down
+Eric Foss You, me, Clay, Garrett and the customer. We're doing fine here. I've got three night projects I'm working on at the moment.
@@jhettish Woah
LOVE YOUR WORK JOHN AND CREW!
And I appreciate your comments. I enjoy editing and publishing the videos as much as I enjoy the challenge of the work. We've had to pull off this site for now due to a massive FM burnout at another location. I hope to have a little video of lowering the antenna elements on that project this weekend.
I like these Big Drum types of things. I used to see towers with them and feel sad they are no longer needed. They are interesting!
exactly! i'm working at a company with at least 20 antennas at our tower, since we are at middle of a city, we just finished our dark fiber connection to pretty much all of the antenna destination, but i still keep them high since they look so cool.
@@president8 In Pittsburgh on Rt. 279 There is a Concrete Tower that was for AT&T and my dad got to go through it.
It was a Microwave Tower. Now its sold to someone else. I haven't been that way for awhile, but it would be interesting to see if the Drums are still on it.
@@Showgirlable I believe you are talking about the tower on troy hills, a relative of mine was in the airforce and said those towers were used for AT&T And Air Force radar. In 1989 they demolished one near mutual ohio and he went in the back of a jet to grab a cup of coffee and heard the pilots say we are now flying over the mutual tower, he also used to see the tower way over the trees from the house he grew up in.
@@ajjacksonthelonglinestower8073 I wish I could show your comment to my Dad. He passed away on Thursday we buried him yesterday.
Every time I will pass that tower I will remember him.
I figured the tower here in Pittsburgh could not be the only Tower that was made of concrete.
@@Showgirlable sorry for your loss, they were made of concrete in 1949 because steel was in short supply for the war effort. In 1948 they only built six roundish concrete towers before switching to the more firmiliar square cement towers. There only 2 of the six round towers still exist today. Did your dad work for AT&T, you got some good info of the troy hill tower station.
I used to install these as a subcontractor for Andrews makes me feel old knowing there outdated
Today everything is IP based. I wish it was still analog and at a reasonable price. I had to change out an entire law enforcement system when my analog MW started having problems. A new system for six sites would have cost around $260K. For that amount I could replace all the car and portable radios for about $270 and get more options and better coverage. Times they are a changing, but the only thing in life is "change". Might as well get used to it. :-) I'm 75 by the way. :-)
Great vid as always, made you tower climb vids look easy :)
This one has been,and continues to be,nerve-wracking. Thanks for the comment
TY John for sharing... much appreciated sir
Thanks for the comment. This job was a real pain and two other crews let me down until I finally got my crew on the site. The use of my crew would have come sooner but I'd had an injury that put me in the hospital for 67 days. No, I didn't fall from a tower; I fell from a tree while trying to rescue a kitten who didn't want to be rescued. I'm ok today but haven't climbed any more trees since then.
Ahh..
I hope it all works out sir..
Appreciate all the insights.
If you ever need an extra hand (IT person)
Do let me know
Telecom works.
Is my dream job
Thank you so much.
Humson.
Love your channel John
Yep those large dishes are like kites! We had to wait until 5 am on a Sunday to lift a 10 ft radiowaves dish for 11GHz Public Safety link 75ft...winds started at 7 am but dish was already mounted...aligned it few days later when winds subsided...fingers can get crushed!!! Nice job on removal... very dangerous...
Good job John.
Thanks. Your comments mean a lot to me.
Your just a very good person, making excellent videos.
Thanks John. I just found your videos. I'll be busy awhile!
+Steve Holsten Thanks for the comment. I wish I had more time to create more videos but at the moment the work and some personal commitments keep me from editing and uploading new videos. If you just found the site there are 98 public videos. Seeing all those should take a while.
+John Hettish I do appreciate your response.
Removing spare antennas is really a though work, I think dismentalling work is much more difficult and risky than fresh installation. The riggers are brave people.
You are absolutely correct Mian. If the people removing some portion of the tower were not the same people who installed it those removing big loads have no idea how the load is going to react until the point of no return. It is usually a very nervous time when that last bolt is removed and the rigging is the only thing holding 1200 pounds or more. For many years riggers had to figure out the entire problem. Today many rigging plans are designed and signed off by licensed engineers. In the past riggers often calculated everything and turned out to be wrong. There's a very interesting well studied case of a 1500 foot tall tower near Houston Texas that fell when a load calculation went wrong while hoisting the new TV antenna to the top of the tower. You can download the study at the following link. www.onlineethics.org/Resources/Cases/collapse.aspx
Thanks sir
What are you using for a trolley line and what size is the trolley block. Were you unable to get more head room on the load line? It looks like all the weight is on the trolley.
Ah, finally an intelligent question. :-) First problem is that the tower was abandon by the original owner and is situated in an overgrown woods. Secondly, a 14 KV service line runs diagonally across the access drive, making placement of the hoist problematical. We had the electric company put covers on the line. When we go back I'm going to have them take the line down completely while we get the last dish.
The trolley line was merely 5/16 double braid rope tensioned by a cat-head. Load is shared by cathead and hoist but mostly the hoist. There is virtually no room on the tower to rig anything but we had made things worse by making some serious mistakes rigging this one which lead to a lot of time, caution and effort getting it off the tower. The trolley block is break rated for 24 Kn with a working load of 10 Kn (about a ton if the load isn't accelerating). The tower has the serious torque arms you see Eric sitting on and there's no room to rig a traditional gin pole. There's still one dish on the top at 350 feet. We will be using different rigging to get it off. The job has been delayed by another job that kept us tied up all summer. By the way, the main lifting power is by a Hydradine double drum hoist capable of 12,000 pounds. Sometimes these things are easy, sometime they aren't.
You guys looked good doin it. Late comment here, but it looked as though you had a heel block at the base of the tower and rope run up to your top block? I like that, straight pull to your cathead or winch and having a trolly line helps with headroom or obstructions. Always professional displays in your videos.
...That tower looked due for a repainting.
I genuinely appreciate the comment. I'm a fan of "heel blocks". I'm also a fan of the "trolley" system. It doesn't matter which way the wind is blowing and you don't end up doubling the strain on the rope or cable by using a tag line.
I answer just about all the comments coming to this channel. I had some cell guy commenting on another video by saying, "You wouldn't last one day on my crew". I think I replied that I was happy not to have to rely on him for a job. :-) On the internet comments can come from a 12 year old pretending to be someone else. I've had very few idiotic comments but yours is a breath of fresh air. It shows your knowledge of how things need to be done. This was one pain in the neck job while I was trying to get over Rotor Cuff surgery. All I could do is stand by, make video from the ground and feel helpless about the outcome. I believe in trusting the guys I've trained.
By the way, the lighting system was changed to white strobe day/red night and while the steel may not be pretty there's no rust or evident damage so painting, now that there's white strobe in daylight, is no longer necessary. John
Gabriel Wireless. ATT used a lot of these towards the end of "long lines" in the 90s..
These belonged to a gas pipeline operator. They converted to fiber and then abandoned their towers. One of the counties near us took it over after it had set for more than 5 years with no lighting and no one to answer the phone when the FAA called. It now has a strobe system.
@@jhettish I ❤ strobing towers! I wonder if a bunch of Dance kids would show up slam on some Techno and start dancing!
A Hospital I go to has a FIELD of 5 or 6 of those towers and its FUN to watch them at night!
@@Showgirlable Never thought of "dancing" around the towers. Usually there's debris and barbed wire protecting the base and anchors of these structures. As for Techno, my favorite band used to be "Clean Bandit" but only two founders of that band remain today. :-) As for towers there are times when "There's No Place I'd Rather Be" John
crane guy reading his manual
Nice one mate
Have you ever climed any of those AT&T microwave towers before I've seen videos of people removing those old horn antennas and I heard they weigh about 1 ton, so they are kinda hard to take down. If I had an AT&T microwave tower I would preserve it.
Hi John, thanks for replying me here. pls which company u work with, or u run on a contract??
Hello. I know it's been a long time but finally an answer. My Company is Middle Tennessee Two-way Inc, a two way radio sales and service company with tower services and radio system design and creation. Basically, I'm a long time radio technician who until recently told my wife I'd stop climbing. Thus no new videos in a long time even though I plan to create some more. I tell people that I haven't climbed any higher than 950 feet since September 23rd 2019 but that I was much younger then. I was only 74.
@@jhettish Thank you for still keeping in touch, do you still use your email you sent me 5 years ago?
@@francisomosimua6281 My email is john@mt2w.com
Is your crew mostly local boys or do you have to hire them from across the country?
Definitely local guys. Since we don't travel far out of Middle Tennessee these guys get to spend time with their kids and wives. Clay coaches a lot of Little-League sports and is very active in his church. Garrett is a youth minister in his church. These guys have no desire to challenge fate and are not adrenaline junkies. We have a new local guy coming to work Monday morning. We'll just have to see how he does. John
@@jhettish just some good ol’ boys
Thumbs up John and the crew,,,I've always wanted to know this,,,and that being,,,the venal covering that covers the microwave dishes,,,do they tend to distort the signal a bit?if you could please answer me that question as well,,,,much success in further filming,,,
The vinyl covering is only to keep weather and other objects out of the antenna and does not distort the signal. The manufacturer and the engineers who designed these antennas took great pains to make sure these were the best antennas, with the highest gain possible. We are on another project for the next couple of weeks but will come back to this tower. We're going to disassemble the dishes and sell them for aluminum scrap. When we disassemble the dishes I'll try to get video of the various parts of the dishes and post it here.
Take a look at this video to find out what happens when animals get into the dishes. Squirrel fills Antenna with Acorns
John Hettish Wow.I didn't know they were made of aluminum.Or parts are.Anyway,they should bring quiet a bit being aluminum.Thanks for the vid and btw,good job on the steady camera work.If there is one thing I dislike is a shaking camera.
crane operator had fun day.
A couple of fun days. Maybe more. I don't remember and don't want to remember.
Poor antennas :(
They were like NO DON'T KILL US PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE ARE GOOD TRANSMITTORS!
On the topic of Guy Wires. What would be the depth of a Guy Wire say for a 1000 ft tower. I have a T.V. Station behind my home in London Ontario Canada and always wondered. Tower was erected in 1957
Do they still make thease dishes??? They look cool on towers
+Tyler Copeland I don't really know but I think they do. Most of these towers are no longer in use due to the availability of fiber-optic lines and high capacity Wireless Backhaul radios. Towers and microwave equipment is very expensive to maintain. If the fiber-optic line goes down simply call the phone company (or other vendor) and have them fix it. I will tell you that after the experience with this tower I no longer think seeing these dishes on towers is cool. Removing them was a real pain, costly and at times downright scary. They did "salvage" well though. John
+John Hettish they look cool on towers of all kind but yea I bet there a pain to remove
Is that a Gabriel or RFS dish.I always hated both of them. Hard to assemble, hang, align test and remove.Andrew was the best.My longest hop was 90 miles. No cell phones back then. The Motorola radio walkie talkies wouldn't make the trip, But we got the path in and green.
Yep, all six of the 10 footers were Gabriel dishes. The absolute worse one was the highest. The tower is hemmed in by forest and I had to get the electric company to take down the primary feed line that ran diagonally across the only place to rig. We used a 12,500 pound hoist to remove five of them then a little 5000 pound Hydradyne with the loud Honda gas motor to get the last one down. It took experienced riggers I brought in to help two days to rig, maneuver, secure then re-rig the toughest one so we could finally wrap up that job. Fortunately for us the tower was only 20 miles from our shop. It was a miserable job and tonight I have a potentially miserable job on a midnight climb. It justs goes on and on, doesn't it. John
Jon
look like Andrew on a fort Worth tower at an old MCI site.
It's just like MCI but this one was an abandoned pipeline monitoring site. This was the worse job I ever took on and hope to never do that again. The tower was surrounded by trees and the only driveway had a 7500 volt primary line diagonally across it. I had the electric company take it down for the duration and called in a NOTAM on the light.
John
MWave Gabriel high performance parabolic antennas
I've never used a static line for a trolley. I've always trolleyed back to load when possible and i see you can't do that being your using a heel block. Does that setup have to do with the weight of the dish? Does that method work more effective when lowering a load at keeping it off the tower? or just less stress on the structure? Sorry for all the questions its just very rare to come across a journeymen tower worker lol
Hello Tristan, The following is pretty long and I hope you get something out of it.
Using a static trolley line is quite handy when handling heavy loads, and on occasion, even light ones. The drawback when handling light loads is the amount of time it takes to rig the static line. Obviously it's a second line and rigging two lines takes longer. Even with light loads there's a time when a static trolley line is almost mandatory. When working in a wind, high enough to be troublesome but not high enough to be too dangerous to climb, a static trolley line allows rigging to the windward side of the structure. The main idea is to keep the load away from the structure until it gets where it needs to be. Let's say you have a tower with only one way to rig due to physical space constraints on the ground. We probably run into that more often than cell guys do but I'm sure they have that problem occasionally. Let's go on to say the wind is out of the north but the only place to rig is the north side of the tower. A static trolley line can be rigged on the side the wind is coming from and the load can be controlled going up or coming down quite easily from that position. Another scenario would be when having to bring load to various heights on a tower. This year we had to replace rigid coax starting from 700 feet and down to 300 feet above ground level. The site had limited rigging opportunities. We were able to trolley the first piece down from 700 feet, slack the trolley and place the piece where our ground man wanted it. Later when we were replacing the rigid line we could send the piece up the tower, slack the trolley and put it right into the hands of whoever was on the tower at that time. Regardless of the wind the trolley kept the load off the tower until we got it where it needed to be. Take a look at this video, beginning at 5 minutes. ua-cam.com/video/3Gs8YI31J2M/v-deo.html In this video we're removing 20 foot long, 85 pound, section of rigid coax and sending it to the ground. We do this one piece at a time. At about 5:20 in the video you will see the trolley being slacked and the equipment we need to remove this piece moving to the tower. As the video goes on you will see me attach the piece of rigid to the load line, the trolley being tensioned and the piece of rigid moving away from the tower and then going down to the ground. I didn't publish any video of replacing the sections but the process was the same, only in the reverse.
What you described is something we use all the time. In my company we call that a "self tag" in that the load is trolleyed back to the load line. If we didn't put a tag on the trolley block it can be a problem, if the wind is trying to blow the load back into the tower. Pulling the load away from the tower we have to pull back on the load line which makes the load go back up if we're lowering or go up too quickly if we're lifting. Even if we did put a tag on the trolley block we're putting extra downward force on the load line by tagging the line. Using a static trolley we're lifting or lowering the load without generating extra force.
Ok, you're probably tired of reading now. I hope this made sense. We use your method more than a static trolley line but the work we do does demand the static trolley line quite often. In some instances you can use a guy wire as a trolley line also but only if you know the guy wire will take the load without stress and if you have enough rope. John
thank you so much for the reply. Ive been doing cell work for 8 years and its rare to come across a seasoned tower work let alone a true professional. Yes everything you said made perfect sense. Like i said i never had a opportunity to learn the trade from anyone and i was pretty much learned through trial and error . I often think back to when i got in the industry and cringe when i think about the rigging on the first booms i flew.
I can understand your "cringing" especially today when booms are completely set up on the ground with radios, TMAs , antennas and other stuff, then hoisted fully loaded to the mounting point. One guy was decapitated in Kentucky when a loaded boom broke something in the rigging and fell on him. Of course he shouldn't have been under the load but I wonder if anyone ever told him about such things. The problem in the cell industry is that most guys don't get the chance to become "seasoned" and the work is generally so similar site to site that innovation doesn't seem necessary. That's only my opinion. I'm guessing that most cell guys are hired for a buildout and when the buildout is finished they're unemployed, having learned only one aspect of tower work. Here's the first video (of 2) that tend to reinforce my opinion of cell work. www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/cell-tower-deaths/
In my company we face all sorts of different things when doing our jobs. There are similarities, but how to do the work seems to change from job to job and that's one of the things I love about it. I'm 72 years old. In the video I recommended the camera was on my helmet. You may have noticed we (Garrett and I) worked slowly and deliberately. We never "hurry up". Here's another video you might find interesting, especially the first part where the brother of the decapitated worker uses the phrase, "he knew what he was doing". Here's the link. ua-cam.com/video/MMfOEo_C5FM/v-deo.html
Yea your pretty much stop on and so is the pbs on tower work. The job dead line is always immediate if not sooner and the average guy in the industry is probably early to mid 20's. So you throw inexperience and all the testosterone as well as the push to complete jobs and its amazing there aren't more deaths really. I can remember not long ago i was that young guy who thought he knew it all and its really quite amazing i never got hurt or worse. 5 companies in 5 years till i found a stable job that was close to home. I'm with you though, I'm a foreman at my company and i don't have to but i still climb every day because i love it. I still learn new thing
Climb every day if and when you can. It will keep you in physical shape. You want to know the quality of the work being done by your crew. Photos don't always tell the whole story. Keep in mind that a photo often leaves a lot of bad stuff out depending on who the photographer is.
Also, leadership by example works. It doesn't mean you sweep the floor because others won't. It means you call them all together, pass out brooms and then pick up one yourself.
From a 72 year old who hasn't been higher than 800 feet so far the best advice I can give is do not smoke. Personally, having been around heavy smokers my entire life, I see smoking as the worse addiction there is. I've never smoked and I'm pretty sure that's why I can still do it.
Obviously as a crew leader you have other things to do but training is a big part of effective leadership. I've always crawled out on the 6' boom to change an antenna while the newbie watched. That gives him confidence and he doesn't have to figure out a way to accomplish the task while in a stressful situation. You probably have someone you consider your assistant crew leader. He should also be leading by example.
I do have a question for you. When you watched the PBS video and the OSHA inspector was at the site where a worker had fallen he leaned back from the fence and said, "I wonder what he must have been thinking while he was falling", what thought went through your head? Just curious if it was the same reaction I had. John
how much antenna height and which type of rope used ?
The antenna in the video was only 200 feet up the tower but you can see there's another dish higher than that. The top dish was in a very awkward place and it took us two days to get that one down. The tower itself is either 300 or 350 feet. I can't remember and don't feel like looking in my records. We used 3/8 19 strand Stainless Steel cable (two drum hoist) for lifting and a 5/16" double braid rope for a trolley.
Good view from on high?
There was one of these old towers in dunkirk ohio, the TMRS map says it was a lightguide station
Trisha Jackson that’s cool! I have an AT&T lightguide fiber optic splice boot that I got from my local Consolidated Communications office, my dad works there and they don’t care if I take any of the old stuff.
Muy buen trabajo, que tipo de guinche, empleaste ? Saludos de LU9EWO
+Jorge Moretti Se utilizó un pequeño 5000 libras elevador hidráulico de Hydradyne prestado de un amigo. Saludos de K4WJZ
I was thinking using a helicopter would be easier / faster but it looks like there were a lot of wires up there.
Nice Drum set though.
what was the frequency of these? Microwave stuff is fascinating, would love to find some stuff from the Bell Long Lines system
I'm guessing it was in the 6Ghz range. There are no labels on the dishes themselves. I also salvaged the microwave equipment but ended up scrapping all but the racks it was mounted in.
oh wow, thanks for the info, and stay safe!
god job
Thanks for the comment Bhashkar. John
Ur wlcm john broii
holy shit, I always thought they were called guide wires, not guy wires lol
Nope, "guy" wires. Don't feel badly though. Many people, especially here in the southern US, think the same thing. They are used to "guy" the tower. "A guy-wire, guy-line, or guy-rope, also known as simply a guy, is a tensioned cable designed to add stability to a free-standing structure. They are used commonly in ship masts, radio masts, wind turbines, utility poles, fire service extension ladders used in church raises and tents." John
John Hettish a
you are a fucking moron
Duh...the man that invented it is Guy Richards...named after him.
What that town?
2:15 turn your g-D damned radio down or don't stand next to me!!!!
Were those 12' dishes?
Yes, 12 foot and 900 pounds. The tower is in the woods with a very small gravel road leading to it and there is one remaining dish. The top dish on the back side is really giving us fits. We'll get it eventually, hopefully without hiring a helicopter. :-)
How often do they paint these towers?????????????
Usually a tower will get repainted around 10 years. This tower has gone long past that period but we had the lighting scheme changed with the Federal Aviation Agency. We run white strobe during the day and red strobe at night. If white strobes are used during the day painting is not necessary any more. Painting is really expensive to the tower owner and a rather expensive business with high liability for damage to adjacent property from blown paint drops. A new strobe system installed on a 300 foot tower is around $6000. Painting at $10 to $100 per foot can get expensive really quick. I'm guessing that the tower in question would have probably cost the customer $20 to $25 per foot and it's 300 feet tall. My company doesn't and never will paint. I prefer to sub-contract painting. John
Has anyone any information on John?
Any idea what frequency those antennas are ?
slippery396 I'm thinking it's 6Ghz. These had been abandoned and the labels were worn off. The main thing I was interested in at that point was how heavy the things were and removing them very carefully.
+John Hettish
I am telecom engineer.I have a 2 years experience of ceragon ip20c .I belongs to India.do u have any job .in transmission field.
Amit Dev I agree, probably 6 GHz. Wow, a 12-foot dish at 6 GHz probably had a HPBW of less the 0.5 degrees. Hope the tower didn’t twist by more than about +-0.1 degrees during wind gusts.
What that road
How come gravity isn’t doing its job?
Too dangerous to drop a 1200 pound load 350 feet to the ground. As falling items fall they increase their speed. I wish I could give you a number right now but I can't. Needless to say the shock (impact) weight would be much greater than 1200 pounds when the dish met the ground.
show!!
Show? Good or bad? That particular tower was a pain in my rear and I underbid taking the dishes down not realizing the size and weight they were. Live and learn I guess.....I hope. Thanks for the comment............I think. :-)
my company.....instling...all the GSM & BTS.....MICROWAY Antinas...................thanks
Always be safe. I'm sure you already know that climbing is not the biggest part of what we do. It's all about the work we do once we've climbed the tower. Everyone goes home at night. John
I am new Engineer so I need More Video
Thanks Engineer John Hettish ,
There are more than 110 videos on my channel. Just google "John Hettish". You'll find two channels. The tower channel has over 3500 subscribers. The other is miscellaneous videos and it has about 50 subscribers. It ought to be pretty obvious which channel is which but feel free to look at both. :-)
+John Hettish
do u have any job ..
aslam dosti ok
Would anyone be interested in a safer more efficient way to install or remove large objects from towers. With cranes reaching to 200' why not attach the Cranemate 10' lg 1500 capacity hydraulically rotation 180 and hydraulic leveling work platform. Even has a 1000 lbs mini jib winch crane. See it at www.reachallplatforms.com
boj je suis un antenniste qualifié 12ans expérience Algérie Télécom je cherche un travaille a l étranger France ou bien le canada
Bonjour mon ami, Puisque vous parlez français, vous devriez pouvoir trouver du travail au Canada dans la province de Québec. À ma connaissance, c'est la langue principale dans cette province. Partout ailleurs, c'est l'anglais. Google Traduction
merci mon ami c' est gentille de votre part mais comment doigte fair pour le canada merci de me répondre amicalement achour amine
Vous êtes bienvenue. Bonne chance dans votre recherche de nouveaux travaux. Maintenant, tout ce dont vous avez besoin, c'est d'un billet d'avion, mais il serait préférable de prendre contact avec une entreprise qui s'engage dans le travail de la tour dans la province canadienne du Québec. Google Translation
merci John vous êtes Vermont gentille vous pouvais m aidé svp plaise je suis mariée j ai 2 enfant et merci encore
malheureusement l Algérie ce n est plus un payé stable et c est pour cela que je vous quitté ce balade j vous ce qui il ya de mieux pour ma famille merci de bien vouloir e me comprendre ci vous pouvais m aidé car je suis un très bon bosseur dans le domaine