Climbing a 540 metre transmitter antenna

Why over 40 or 50 metres anything further is academic as to the result

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hmmm, static induced lightning from airflow, the fact it swings around ten metres at the top in a strong wind, the fact you'd be more or less rooted after the last 100 feet climb to the top.

I've spoken to a few riggers who admitted that they've been thrown off the tower they were working on.

It's not academic. There are practical reasons as to why broadcast towers are located on hills and buildings.

comprehension isn't high is it ? tell me the diff between falling 300 M and 50 M ? the odds of survival are very small

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Coming down in base jump is pretty awsome though , and the $ is excellent Last fall did my confidence though and now more than 20 metres I find it difficult

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I understand a 2 metre fall in a harness is about the physical limit a body can cop with. Speaking of base jumping, it would save climbing back down the antenna again.

When you have a good amount of tools hanging and maybe some fittings and a coil of cable 2 metres really hurts

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From memory, anything over about 40-50 M, or so you reach terminal velocity, so anything more is not going to make much difference to the outcome.

For many people, even a fall from a few metres, depending on how you land and what you land on could cause permanent injury or death.

One incident I can recall in the 1990's was when a guy (member of the public) climbed about 1/2 way up an ABC AM radio tower some years back in some form of protest that made it onto the regional news. Whatever it was he wanted (wasnt a huge ask, I think it was some legitimate dispute over a council rates notice or similar that had been ignored) he did get, and eventually came down without incident after a day or so up there.

The news reported that he was given aluminium foil by the negotiators

- claiming he would need to wrap it around his balls unless he wanted to be sterile from the radiation. It was unknown whether or not they turned the transmitter off while he was up there.

These towers were a triangular truss like structure, and a fall down the centre of one of these would likely have you being thrown back and forth many times between the structural members as you hit them, so you would probably be pretty beat up before the time you reached bottom.

At that height a parachute would be worthwhile. Shame about the weight.

Sylvia.

I remember a visit to the Bald Hills shortwave transmitter site in

1987 with about a 100 metre tall antenna with the full length driven by 20KW or so: they said the induced voltage difference between your hands and feet on the tower would electrocute you.

For a demo the tech shorted out the last egg insulator on one of the guy wires which had insulators every 10m or so with a length of wire and struck up an arc like a small welder, the radio program came through clearly.

It would, but I suspect that climbing down is safer than jumping. A parachute would be nice to have as a backup, but from that height, you depend on nothing going wrong with the opening.

Sylvia.

hey

one

I have seen that one (not at bald hills), where they held an earthed rod close to the guy wire, and you could hear the program in the "arc". They claimed that after it was first powered up, neighbours complained of "speaking roofs" which turned out to be arcing between the corrugated iron sheets, which resulted in announcers voices being heard through the "arc". Bonding them all together was done to solve this problem.

Out of interest, there was a similar ABC AM 5KW array at Hervey bay QLD with 2 towers that was demolished about 3 years back and a new AM system built a few KM away. I happened to see it on the 7 news at the time, they just cut the guy wires and just let the tower simply drop, then the guys moved in for the next couple of weeks, cut the thing to bits and carted it off for scrap.

They also had a hut at Bald Hills with the old water cooled valves, including radiators, pumps and water demineralisation system, no longer used, but apparently not able to be demolished because of the national trust or similar. You see that antenna coming into Brisbane from the north, its very impressive.

I have seen that one (not at bald hills), where they held an earthed rod close to the guy wire, and you could hear the program in the "arc". They claimed that after it was first powered up, neighbours complained of "speaking roofs" which turned out to be arcing between the corrugated iron sheets, which resulted in announcers voices being heard through the "arc". Bonding them all together was done to solve this problem.

Out of interest, there was a similar ABC AM 5KW array at Hervey bay QLD with 2 towers that was demolished about 3 years back and a new AM system built a few KM away. I happened to see it on the 7 news at the time, they just cut the guy wires and just let the tower simply drop, then the guys moved in for the next couple of weeks, cut the thing to bits and carted it off for scrap.

They also had a hut at Bald Hills with the old water cooled valves, including radiators, pumps and water demineralisation system, no longer used, but apparently not able to be demolished because of the national trust or similar. You see that antenna coming into Brisbane from the north, its very impressive.

I remember fondly a visit to the 6WF/WN transmitter at Wanneroo, near Perth. There was a combiner hut right next to the mast, where the transmission lines from the two transmitters (50KW and 10KW IIRC) merged into the feed to the tower. The whole setup crackled with corona, in time with the program material.

Don't suppose anyone knows where here are some pics of this setup and the old transmitters themselves, which have long since been replaced with solid state? Very little on the web that I can find.

Without a parachute the wait on the way down would be worse!

antenne-540m.html#

Geez Mark, thanks for that (NOT)! My testes are hurting just from watching this. Dunno why, maybe fear of heights?

I'm also wondering if they've heard of helicopters there. Maybe it's like this cheaper because they're 'free' climbers :-)

Anyway, keeps 'em off the street I guess...

Hmmm. Trip time is around 15 seconds. Some teenagers could send a message to Twitter and update their Facebook page in that time.

Sylvia.

job:

Helicopters and towers haven't always been a good mixture. Freeclimbing obviously has its risks, but I doubt any of these guys will die from lack of exercise.

Sylvia.

It was very old equipment probably 1920-1930's vintage, coils made out copper waterpipe etc.

There is a limited edition self published book by some radio engineer that was very comprehensive and a good read for the average tech head.

I picked up some valves from the Darwin shortwave transmitter that the Gov't sold to private enterprise on Ebay after it closed due to the site lease expiring. As far as I know, even the scrappies weren't interested, broadcast gear for the taking!!.