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UER Forum > Archived Rookie Forum > Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.) (Viewed 752 times)
Tastee-Freeze 


Location: Saskatoon. Saskatchewan.
Gender: Male




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Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
< on 4/10/2012 2:19 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
First Video (From Ground): http://youtube.com/watch?v=oV--Y9aT-bo
Second Video (From Top): http://youtube.com/watch?v=WudE1shDk24
Third Video (From Ground): http://youtube.com/watch?v=3FZQFhbQFK8

There is the link to the first video of a three part series (the next two videos are linked in the description) of what I did with a bit of free time while vacationing in Florida. I probably fried my brain with radio waves doing this, but is been a few days so I figure I must still be alright. If anything, I've noticed an increase in my stamina since climbing this thing, of course, there could just be something in the water.

This is my first post to this site, so I figured I might start with something big. So I did. I kind of regret not topping the tower though, now that I look back on it. I might have to do it again. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy it. And if you have any ideas for other stuff like this, especially around the Saskatoon area, please let me know, that would be great.

Also, I have to apologize that my hand was in front of the camera corner for part of the second video, but if I hadn't had it there, no one would have heard me over the ripping wind.

Have a nice day and leave me a comment.
Thanks.

-Tastee.


P.S: I had to shoot this on an iPod since I own no camera. Also, can anyone tell me exactly how illegal this is?
[last edit 4/10/2012 11:51 PM by Tastee-Freeze - edited 3 times]

Entry to the rooftop playground is free, if you look up enough to know it's there.
-Dsankt on 'The Crane Style'
SuchundFind 


Location: San Antonio, Texas
Gender: Male




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Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 1 on 4/10/2012 10:27 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Couldn't watch the videos, they don't come up when I click in the links.

While I followed your links, I watched this video"
http://www.youtube...761ccfRVAAAAAAAAAQ

Now as I didn't see what you did, but this video, I must say that I climb in a little different way, specially with this kind of radio towers.
In general I have some kind of a band around the tower, so I don't have to told on to the tower the whole time. This makes it quite easy to get your safety from one point to the next.



Beens 


Location: Toronto
Gender: Male




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Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 2 on 4/10/2012 10:45 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Take the "/#" out of your URLs

SuchundFind I agree with your comment on the second video...while its nice to always be hooked it at least once, all that clipping and unclipping just over complicates it I think. What do you use for the band?

Tastee are you climbing barefoot? not sure if you mentioned it, im watching it without sound.
Also there are a couple of threads around on the topic of radiation from towers that you should read through if you haven't already.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/beenerman/
Tastee-Freeze 


Location: Saskatoon. Saskatchewan.
Gender: Male




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Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 3 on 4/10/2012 11:46 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Yeah, I was climbing barefoot, I mean, it was either that or flip-flops!
As for the radiation, I mentioned that I saw a sign on the ground in the third video, and the thought did cross my mind. But by that point I had committed myself to the climb and honestly, I would be ticked at myself for pussying out, even at personal risk.

I also almost always climb free, I find ropes to be a hassle, yes, they make it a lot safer, but I know a guy who almost strangled himself once because he messed up one knot, forgot to loop back on his figure eight, way I heard it.
No, I just go up the structure, then I come down. Simple as that, falling isn't an option. That may just be me being overly cocky, but hey, it's what I do. I climbed up on the inside of the tower, which made it a lot slower, but was probably a lot safer, if one of those old, rusted bars fell off, I would hit more bars and a fair amount of structure, that holds for any direction I would have fallen in except forwards, which, according to physics, isn't possible.

Also, sorry about the URL's, I'm in Florida right now and can't use my laptop, bad cable, and it's still a few days till I head back to Sask.

Entry to the rooftop playground is free, if you look up enough to know it's there.
-Dsankt on 'The Crane Style'
SuchundFind 


Location: San Antonio, Texas
Gender: Male




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Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 4 on 4/11/2012 4:50 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Beens
Take the "/#" out of your URLs

SuchundFind I agree with your comment on the second video...while its nice to always be hooked it at least once, all that clipping and unclipping just over complicates it I think. What do you use for the band?



It looks similar to the upper left one in this picture:



It's quite simple, you have it connected to the two anchor points on the harness, as you might know, tower climbing harnesses have two in the front. and it goes around the tower. So unless your legs give up, you will not fall. It gives some problems with the cable guys but you can work around it. I also use a working lanyard, that more or less is only a very short version of the one you use around the tower. This way I am tied to the tower in a way that I can use more force when installing or removing items. As I probably said, I do this for ham radio so I need both hands free when I am working.


Tastee-Freeze you climbed inside of the tower?
I can't do so, but with the harness it's quite safe to do it on the outside.
Also, people that see you wearing a harness could believe that you are part of the maintenance crew and they will not call PD, but this is only what I found out.

Also from the building size and the cable size, they were pumping a lot of energy in this tower. You might want to check on the purpose of a tower before you climb on it. I know quite some people that got cancer from working near high power transmitters, and they were shielded from the output.

Crypton 


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Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 5 on 4/11/2012 5:07 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
I got a weird tunnel vision from the portrait orientation of the video so I only watched first two seconds. If you rotate your phone landscape, it will shoot video the proper way. Just so you know.


Not using fall protection is stupid. Wind picks up or your hands get tired, or you slip and fall. You should at least be using a climbing harness and at least one clipped point of contact at all times.

Granted, there are people that have confidence and strength to free climb this.

Tastee-Freeze 


Location: Saskatoon. Saskatchewan.
Gender: Male




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Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 6 on 4/11/2012 5:32 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
I don't know about the strength part, but I'm confident enough in my skills. Plus I was on vacation, and my old harness (which I left at home) has a broken buckle that I still haven't gotten around to fixing. I might just buy a new one and save myself the trouble.
O tend to have a pretty decent grip, especially of something important, like, say, my life, hangs in the balance. I spent about ten minutes holding on to a buttress over a library once while my friend dug around on the roof and secured a rope for mr to grab. He had a longer reach then I did, so I couldn't grab the hold he could and got stuck. Also, I climbed on the inside, so yeah, I fall, it's going to hurt. But it won't be deadly unless I get the tower to fall.

Also, directed at SuchundFind, does a guy in a muscle shirt and basketball shorts ever look like he should be climbing a tower? And in regards to the output, thanks, I read the tower wrong and couldn't find the sign that listed the output, I didn't want to break into the building at the base either, as that could set off all kinds of alarms. So instead, I grabbed my tinfoil hat (joking) and just climbed the bugger as fast as I could, to try and limit my exposure time as much as possible. And I feel fine now, so effects are probably going to be long term, but I dunno for sure.

Entry to the rooftop playground is free, if you look up enough to know it's there.
-Dsankt on 'The Crane Style'
SuchundFind 


Location: San Antonio, Texas
Gender: Male




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Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 7 on 4/12/2012 4:46 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Tastee-Freeze
Also, directed at SuchundFind, does a guy in a muscle shirt and basketball shorts ever look like he should be climbing a tower? And in regards to the output, thanks, I read the tower wrong and couldn't find the sign that listed the output, I didn't want to break into the building at the base either, as that could set off all kinds of alarms. So instead, I grabbed my tinfoil hat (joking) and just climbed the bugger as fast as I could, to try and limit my exposure time as much as possible. And I feel fine now, so effects are probably going to be long term, but I dunno for sure.


I have seen some people that climb radio towers in shorts, and yes they got paid to do so. So I am not sure how to answer this question.

Now as I said, you should try to find out about the tower online. Every radio tower will be found online. So you can determine if you want to get on this tower or not.

For example there are some people that can have 1000 Watt output on there transmitter, I wouldn't want to be near this antenna when the operator goes into overdrive. On the other hand a 30 watt repeater will not do so much damage and can be checked if it's even transmitting.


Tastee-Freeze 


Location: Saskatoon. Saskatchewan.
Gender: Male




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Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 8 on 4/12/2012 4:32 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Oh, neat. I thought you could only find out online information for the really big ones. Not the smaller little sky needles, which is what I climbed. I mean, at its widest it might have been 3/4 Meters.

Entry to the rooftop playground is free, if you look up enough to know it's there.
-Dsankt on 'The Crane Style'
SuchundFind 


Location: San Antonio, Texas
Gender: Male




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Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 9 on 4/13/2012 12:32 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Try this link:
http://radio-locator.com/

It will tell you the power output of the tower, and this can be quite important.

http://wireless2.f...strationSearch.jsp

This one gives you information about the height and other construction issues.


Every radio transmitter in the USA has to have a license. You might have wondered why radio and TV stations mostly start with a K, that's because KAA to KZZ is the block that was given to US stations. This includes radio stations as well as Ham Radio Operators.

Tastee-Freeze 


Location: Saskatoon. Saskatchewan.
Gender: Male




Send Private Message | Send Email | Polygon Productions
Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 10 on 4/13/2012 2:20 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
There's a whole website dedicated to this?
Why is there no direct link to this from this site?
I usually just ready the warning plates at the bottom, depending on how bad they say it is, I decide wether or not to climb. I couldn't find any for this tower, so I just decided to see if the tower felt hot or if I started to feel warmer than I should, which, despite being a bit slow, is usually a good indicator that you're being microwaved.

Entry to the rooftop playground is free, if you look up enough to know it's there.
-Dsankt on 'The Crane Style'
SuchundFind 


Location: San Antonio, Texas
Gender: Male




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Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 11 on 4/13/2012 2:40 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Tastee-Freeze
There's a whole website dedicated to this?
Why is there no direct link to this from this site?
I usually just ready the warning plates at the bottom, depending on how bad they say it is, I decide wether or not to climb. I couldn't find any for this tower, so I just decided to see if the tower felt hot or if I started to feel warmer than I should, which, despite being a bit slow, is usually a good indicator that you're being microwaved.


Here is one more page I forgot to give you before:

http://www.radioreference.com

I don't know why nobody every linked these pages, probably nobody cared too much about it.

The warning signs are not really a good indicator about the output of a station.
Yeah when you feel warm, you are already overexposed to this kind of radiation. That's how a lot of soldiers got cancer 20 years ago.
In the winter time they sat on the radar transmitter and waited for the warm feeling. The power input of these systems was about 150 kw, so they have quite a high output, as radar output is not continuous wave.

I don't want to scare you or so, they over did it. But you should play kind of safe when getting on a radio tower.

Tastee-Freeze 


Location: Saskatoon. Saskatchewan.
Gender: Male




Send Private Message | Send Email | Polygon Productions
Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 12 on 4/13/2012 10:33 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Good to know, by the way, do these still hold for Canadian towers? Or is it only in the states?

(Sorry bout the short post, I gotta run)

Entry to the rooftop playground is free, if you look up enough to know it's there.
-Dsankt on 'The Crane Style'
SuchundFind 


Location: San Antonio, Texas
Gender: Male




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Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 13 on 4/14/2012 12:22 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
The last link works for Canada as well.
The first links I send you are probably for the USA only as they use FCC data.

Under databases you can chose the country you would like to look at.

Tastee-Freeze 


Location: Saskatoon. Saskatchewan.
Gender: Male




Send Private Message | Send Email | Polygon Productions
Re: Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.)
<Reply # 14 on 4/14/2012 2:22 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
H, sweet, this simplifies things greatly.
Going to try these out on some towers I've had my eye on around Sask. They're smaller ones, little cell towers, but they should have a great view, what with the prairie I could see for hundreds of kilometers.

Entry to the rooftop playground is free, if you look up enough to know it's there.
-Dsankt on 'The Crane Style'
UER Forum > Archived Rookie Forum > Radio Tower. (Fairly sure it's still in use, too.) (Viewed 752 times)



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