Tower Climbing on Hot Broadcast Towers

With the proper planning and consideration of a broadcasters needs, tower crews climbing a broadcast tower can avoid frustration and difficulty. The presence of high levels of broadcast frequency RF require safety considerations and good coordination with the broadcast station. Here are a few steps to take that will reduce these problems and make climbing a broadcast tower "no big deal".

Step #1 Always ask your Project Manager if the tower you are going to work on has broadcast antennas on it. While a very large number of towers have been constructed for the cellular industry, there are quite a few broadcast towers that are now collocating wireless services on them. The levels of RF from the broadcast antennas is very significant and you need to avoid RF exposure issues.

Step #2 Make contact with the broadcast tower owner at least 48 hours prior to your crews arrival. If possible obtain the broadcast stations engineer contact information and coordinate your visit schedule with him. Most radio station engineers are helpful and will provide assistance to make your climb RF exposure safe.

Step #3 Be aware that the broadcast station will likely be sacrificing revenue if they have to power off for your work. Maintain an understanding of this and keep a professional attitude when working with the radio station engineer will minimize conflict.

Step #4 Always wear an RF Exposure Meter when climbing, it will ensure that you are informed if there are high levels of RF that you should avoid.

Step #5 AM Broadcast towers are often RF Hot from the bottom glass insulator all the way up the steel. Touching the tower while standing on the ground will result in a terrible RF burn that can kill you. Make certain you discuss this issue with the radio station engineer before entering the site. He can tell you if this issue exists on the tower you are climbing. The station engineer will turn off the transmitter while you climb. I suggest you follow him and watch as the transmitter is shut off just to be certain it is safe to climb.

Step #6 Some tall towers were originally used for FM broadcast and later an AM station was added to the tower by installing skirt wires. Skirt wires run vertically from the tower base up to a support a few hundred feet above. You will usually see skirt wires offset about 2 feet from the tower itself and typically there are 3 to 6 of them. To the inexperienced person they look like safety climb wires but beware they are not to be used for that, they are weak and would snap. Skirt wires are not a common occurrence but you should be aware of them.

Step #7 Make the radio station broadcast engineer aware of any collateral issues that you may find, so that future maintenance can be planned.

Following these simple steps will make your work day less frustrating and help develop good rapport with the tower owner and station engineer. And that brings return business.

Dave Dybas AM Detuning