as a spinoff of this thread, http://motorola.canopywireless.com/comm … php?t=1074
What’s the worst (or best, depending on your perspective) thing you’ve dropped off of a tower?
Personally, I once dropped a socket wrench from 100’. It still works, just feels a little “gritty” when spinning the socket.
My installer dropped a brand new 14.4V Dewalt Drill from about 100 feet up and hit concrete at the bottom. It on the other hand was completely useless laying in about 10 different pieces.
ahull wrote: as a spinoff of this thread, http://motorola.canopywireless.com/comm ... php?t=1074
What's the worst (or best, depending on your perspective) think you've dropped off of a tower?
Personally, I once dropped a socket wrench from 100'. It still works, just feels a little "gritty" when spinning the socket.
Thanks for that Andrew...
Well, I have dropped just about everything. I sorta got butter fingers when
up on a tower. Lucky I haven't dropped myself (almost did once working on
my own tower at my house).
For me, almost all of my tower work is done on mountain tops above 7K-ft
so we have to contend with stiff winds all the time.
I've dropped antennas new and old, wrenches, sockets and the nuts for
the U-bolts on antennas...Yeah, I should take a couple of extras...
I've never dropped my drill. With the Dewalts, there's a loop on the back
that I have installed a keyring on. I then attach a teather to the keyring so
that the drill can hang from the tower.
Dropped a 2.4GHz, 8-foot dish on purpose....THAT was fun!
n7slc wrote:
Dropped a 2.4GHz, 8-foot dish on purpose....THAT was fun!
That must have been great. I can just imagine that dish. Did the dishes shape cause unperdictable "maneuvers" during its "flight?" LOL
ahull wrote: [quote="n7slc":1k1y46f9]
Dropped a 2.4GHz, 8-foot dish on purpose....THAT was fun!
That must have been great. I can just imagine that dish. Did the dishes shape cause unperdictable "maneuvers" during its "flight?" LOL[/quote:1k1y46f9]
Haha...not too much as we only dropped it about 50-ft. It is now unusable
though...
I was up a 300 ft tower with another guy, mounting our new Canopy equipment. On our way down, I was at about 220ft and he was at about 230, a 1 1/4 inch wrench come out of his tool bag. It went cruising by me about 10 feet out, caught a guide wire on the way down and made a cool sound all the way to the ground where it landed about 6ft from the hood of one of the ground crews personal truck.
It was the coolest noise I had ever heard…
in 5 years time…
4 nextels ( Smashed )
3 GTX Portables ( 1 smashed… 2 working )
4 MT1000 ( all in good working order still )
1 Dell Aixm ( don’t ask )
Who knows how many tools. or cat5 ends
all from 130 - 200 feet plus…
moose wrote: I was up a 300 ft tower with another guy, mounting our new Canopy equipment. On our way down, I was at about 220ft and he was at about 230, a 1 1/4 inch wrench come out of his tool bag. It went cruising by me about 10 feet out, caught a guide wire on the way down and made a cool sound all the way to the ground where it landed about 6ft from the hood of one of the ground crews personal truck.
It was the coolest noise I had ever heard...
Sweet! I remember similar noises when we erected our first tower. After the guy wires were attached and secure, we would tap them with a wrench or something. Sounded like a sound effect from Star Wars.
I can only imagine with your height and everything....
fmoses wrote: in 5 years time..
4 nextels ( Smashed )
3 GTX Portables ( 1 smashed.. 2 working )
4 MT1000 ( all in good working order still )
1 Dell Aixm ( don't ask )
Who knows how many tools. or cat5 ends
all from 130 - 200 feet plus..
Dang! Are you a dedicated tower climber or just have one hellofa brag list?
Year and a half ago, dropped a Motorola T731 from about 200 feet. It was in one of those firm, elastic sided cases (?), I wathed it all the way, watched it bounce. “Son of a…”, well, I said worse than that. Got down there and I expected it to be f*cked, or at least the displays broken. NOPE! It was all good, a little dirt in the accy. jack - other than that it worked fine…
A few years ago, we deliberatly let a dual-feed 210C2 (just a little longer than a 210C4) from 300 feet. It was hit by lightning a few too many times, we figured what the hell, we’d cut it up to haul it back anyways, let’s toss it. I was a little nervous about the unpredictable path it could take, but we were lucky and all was good.
About 7 years ago, I was training on a tower crew with the local telco (Telus) and dropped pair of linemans pliers about 180 feet. They bounced outside the tower just below me and the head of the pliers stuck in the roof of the building about 2 inches. Scared the sh!t out of the guys on the ground. Lucky again.
I was at the top of a 68’ Delhi (anyone know those pieces of sh!t?). It had a 20 foot mast out the top and the antenna was right on top. I slid the mast down, just pushing the coax out to the side. While I did my work on the antenna I held the mast between my toes (?). I forgot, of course, that it was there and only held by my toes. I moved, I heard …zinnnnnnnggggg… then thought “F#CK!!” and then “DONNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG” as it hit the steel plate at the center of the base. Everyone comes running out the building expecting to see me on the ground. I was embarassed. haha
Again with Telus, we were changing tarps on the high-perf dishes around the province. We were headed down after doing a 12 foot dish and buddy was about 12-15 feet above me. I head “ting, ting…” bang, an 8 inch cresent hits me on the hard hat. lol The only time I’ve been thankful for my hard hat.
I have lots more stories if anyone wants to hear them…
Aaron
well just yesterday my buddy was about 90 ft up on a new rohn45 we was installing and the rope got tangled in the pully at the bottom tower so i eased over to untangle it and about that time i heard a big cathump and about 1 ft in front of me stuck a cresent wrench about an inch in the ground.whewwww if that would have hit me in the head there no telling the damage it could have done to that wrench.
kmeadows wrote: if that would have hit me in the head there no telling the damage it could have done to that wrench.
I would imagine taking a wrench to the hardhat (hopefully you had a hardhad on) would be quite the experience.
I accidentally dropped a nut from about 150' and beaned my buddy on the ground on the hardhat. That was alarming enough according to him, just imagine a wrench.
putting up a tower in 20ft sections,
dropped the 3rd section landed on landlords roof…
a KFC chicken sandwidch
I dropped an EFJohnson handheld radio just yesterday about 70 feet up on a water tower on my way to the top (100feet) to work on my Canopy Backhaul dish. Got on the ground and saw the battery was hosed, so I put a new one in and the radio worked just fine. For some reason I this it was just dump luck that the radio worked!
Dropped a Nextel cell phone from 300 foot. It hit one of the guy wires on the way down. Fell into 18 inches of weed/ground cover. We looked for about 10 minutes but couldn’t find it. One of the guys sent an 2-way alert and we tracked in down, still works okay
A couple of days ago we dropped a radio board off the tower.
It hit snow at the base fortunately.
So we picked it up, blew out the snow, left it in the heat lamp for an hour and then re-installed. Works great!
Never been thankfull for snow in that regard, but it was the extreem cold and bare fingers that caused the drop in the first place I guess.
SPeaking of climbing in the cold, do you have any tips for me so that I do not drop the 120 Secorized 900 antenna im going to “attempt” to install by myself? Thanks!
Drop a wrench yesterday also dropped a cell phone from a crane offshore.
wirelessSolutions wrote: SPeaking of climbing in the cold, do you have any tips for me so that I do not drop the 120 Secorized 900 antenna im going to "attempt" to install by myself? Thanks!
When I climb out towers to mount equipment, I usually make the climp with a rope and pully attached to my belt. Once I'm secure at working height, my ground crew will pull the equipment up to me.
When its a big project or heavy stuff, they will pull up to me a jibb arm first that will keep the radios from banging against the tower.
Changing gears, I once had a butter-fingers moment with a 2-way radio from 150'. It slipped out of my hand, but after 3 or 4 "juggles" I caught it. Glad I didn't drop that.