truly the scariest video I have EVER seen
I have been involved in broadcasting in one form or another pretty much my whole adult life.
For the four years I worked in radio, I knew many broadcast engineers and I knew some of the perils of their job – not all of it is dangerous but some of it is. One of them was seriously electrocuted by a TV transmission line (he survived and continues to work in broadcast engineering).
But I think I tried to block out of my mind the work done by those few souls who work on broadcast towers. I believe these folks are not always broadcast engineers and in fact the people you are about to see I believe are not broadcast engineers but folks who I would call tower jockeys – people who maintain and repair broadcast towers.
It is insanely dangerous work.
In this video, you will watch two men climb over 1700′ up a single ladder and then free climb to change the beacon on a broadcast tower…that light at the VERY tip top of the tower that lets pilots know there’s a big stick in there way.
IF YOU ARE AFRAID OF HEIGHTS…you seriously may not be able to watch this whole video. If you are not afraid of heights, you may be after watching this video.
My thanks to my friend and great broadcaster/voice talent Chuck Lakefield for the link off his Facebook page.
What you think of this video?
I had to stop watching about a third of the way in. One job you could never pay me enough to do. There was a young tower service man who fell from a 1,200′ tower at a station I was working at in Phoenix. The poor kid was new and accidentally attached the safety clip to his own leather belt instead of the harness. Not a great way for any of us to start our broadcast day.
B
Oy!
That horrible reality was just the kind of stuff I was imagining watching the video.
We forget the sacrifices people make so that we can do our jobs or enjoy our services (like radio and TV).
Thanks Bruce.
Best always,
-Peter
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Thanks for this link, Peter! My grandfather, may he RIP, used to build these towers in the Dominican Republic. He used to tell us stories about his adventures. He lost sight in one eye as a result of an accident, but continued working all over the country putting up these extraordinary monuments to human engineering. He was a strong man and, according to what I just saw, a man with balls of steel.