what 's the PAY? I hope they make alot, cause that is some scary chit 
Taken from a web site...
Interview with a Tower Climber
shareWhat do you do for a living?
I’m the operations manager for a tower company, a company that builds broadcasts and communications towers, but I got my start climbing up and down them.
How would you describe what you do?
We do everything that’s involved with building and maintaining a tower.
What does your work entail as a tower climber?
We build the towers, we take them down, we put the lights on them, we change the lights, we paint them, we scrape them, we run the antennas and lines.
When you go up a tower and you’re climbing 400 feet, you’re not coming down to get a cup of coffee, you’re not coming down to warm your hands, you’re not coming down for a lunch break. When you go up the tower you’re going to be there all day, it’s kind of like being like a mountain climber.
One of the more interesting things for most tower climbers is when they do a really high re-lamp, because most of them they’re are at night, and the broadcast towers could be 1,000 or 1,500-foot tall. They take the station off the air at one or two a.m. and you’re climbing in the wee hours of the morning changing the bulbs. That would be one of the more interesting things, the view is really good. Other than that it’s a lot of hanging lines and putting nuts and bolts through holes and running cable. A lot of tower crews are on the road all the time, where they just go from one job to the other, always on a per diem and having to get lodging, never really putting down roots. We’re fortunate in our company here that we do most of our work centrally located, but there’s still a lot of time on the road, a lot of times it’s hotels and work, hotels and work.
How did you get started?
I got started because I had relatives who owned a company. I had been in restaurant management for twenty years and I’d had enough of that. I thought it would be really exciting to get out and do something where you’d be physically challenged all the time and your decisions have more of an impact than whether the salad dressing’s correct. It takes a certain kind of person to really enjoy this though. You have to want to do it. If you’re just looking for a job, this isn’t for you.
What do you like about being a tower climber?
I like almost everything except for the winter time. You maintain a pretty high level of physical fitness, though you don’t end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger. You’re not cut and all that, but you’re dragging yourself up and down towers every day, so you do have a certain level of physical fitness. Secondly, you’re outside all the time. So if you like being outside that’s a big plus. Also, it’s usually small crews and you’re kind of out in the boondocks, so you have to be a problem-solver, and every situation is a little bit different, things never fit the way the blue prints show, so sometimes were called to do some reengineering to make things work. When I was climbing with we had a great bunch of guys that traveled together, and it was a team effort. Everybody pulled on the same rope.
One of the more interesting things for most tower climbers is when they do a really high re-lamp, because most of them are at night, and the broadcast towers could be 1,000 or 1,500-foot tall. They take the station off the air at one or two a.m. and you’re climbing in the wee hours of the morning changing the bulbs…the view is really good.
If you weren’t getting after it, someone else was. There was a credo where you wouldn’t leave a guy on the tower. If you did your portion of the work and were done with it, you wouldn’t scamper down and let the other guy finish it. Everybody came off together, everybody went up together. That was a lot of fun then. People related what we did to the last cowboys, because we were always traveling and always out and about. So it can be a lot of fun.
What do you dislike?
I would dread the cold weather. Being up on a tower in the cold and knowing the night before that it was going to be 20 degrees the next day, and there’s still no way you’re out of it, the only way through it was to finish it, and you know you’re going to be up there for eight or nine hours. The cold is the thing that I like the least. I think almost every tower guy will tell you that. If you go up a tower and you’re climbing 400 feet, you’re not coming down to get a cup of coffee, you’re not coming down to warm your hands, you’re not coming down for a lunch break. When you go up the tower you’re going to be there all day, it’s kind of like being like a mountain climber.
How do you make money/or how are you compensated?
We’re hourly employees and depending on what level of climber you are; whether you’re a beginner or an elite climber, or if you’re taking crews, your pay varies.
How much money do you make?
Depending upon how much you work and what company you’re with the pay can range from $32,000 to $50,000 per year. They don’t make as much as you’d think. When I first started I thought, “I know these guys are making $50 an hour,” but it’s not true.
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Topic: Tower Climbing (Read 2651 times)