Relamping a Beacon @ 220 feet

During an insurance inspection of a rather fat Rohn tower we changed the incandescent lamps. This is merely a short stop for me as I inspect the northwest leg of the 470 foot tall tower. There are two levels of beacons on this tower. Two in the middle and one at the top. I'm relamping the mid beacon on the northwest side.
I may want to re-edit this video. The audio might be hard to hear due to frequency response and my tendency to say things not related to much of anything. You will hear me talk about the cable ladder, downtown Nashville and make structural comments as audio notes to me for inclusion in the written insurance report. I want to hear the audio on KZbin before deciding whether to leave it as it is or modify it. I am not getting much chance to climb and even less chance to edit videos. Editing is pretty important when the camera is capable of recording more than an hour and a half of stuff not worth watching, but potentially good recon information for the next time we have to go to the site for some maintenance or installation matter.

[@SteveHolsten]

Thanks for the video John. I enjoy watch one.

[@jhettish]

I enjoy having folks like you to create videos for. Thanks for the comment. John

[@SteveHolsten]

I meant I enjoy watching each one.

[@jhettish]

I think my sleep deprived brain actually added "each" automatically. Now I see what happened. I have to proof read everything I write. My 60 wpm fingers can easily outrun my slow brain. I once hear a hustler defined as, "A fast talking salesmen talking to slow thinking people." I may be one of the slow thinkers. John

[@Fireship1]

Nice to see another video from you John. The birds really like hanging out on that tower judging from the mess they left behind. Did you ever have a pesky or defensive bird give you a hard time when trying to work on a tower? Throwing the bulbs down makes good sense. You have enough stuff to lug down the tower already!

[@jhettish]

I've never had a bird cause me problems. I've had the privilege of seeing a hawk fly to the tower and land on a fixture below me, not realizing that I was above him. Once he figured it out he'd be gone. Many times Vultures, a very common bird in Tennessee, will circle towers. I fly gliders occasionally and cannot attribute their circling to a thermal caused by the steel structure. Mostly they're just circling to land on the structure itself. I've seen Vulture droppings so thick on towers in Kentucky that it looked like white paint that had been applied with a brush. Another critter is wasps. There's one tower I deal with that has wasp nests inside the legs. The only time I ever climb this particular stick (250 feet) is the summer. During the summer wasps defend their nests and will sting. I have been stung on this tower but only a couple of times. In the fall wasps swarm on towers but they don't sting. They're trying to mate and are not defending a nest. They're absolutely harmless in that situation. I climbed through a swarm about a week ago. It would be nice if I could do a specific "wasps during the fall" video. I'll have to look for an opportunity to do that.

[@jmurphy1973]

Inside climbing ladder, a treat especial.

[@jhettish]

I know guys who won't climb on the inside of a tower. Personally I like inside better than outside. John

[@littlemnlt9856]

Hey John I'm looking into becoming a tower climber. I'm in a tech school right now for welding but what do you have to do to get the training you need?

[@khoroshilovalex2012]

Keep watching your videos to metally prepare... just got hired as a tower tech and hoping to get used to climbing high quickly! Any advice for a newbie?

[@jhettish]

Yes, work slowly and don't try to become an expert overnight. Tower work is not dangerous if you approach it with the correct attitude. First decide you don't want to die. Second, take steps to see that doesn't happen. Always be aware of where you are and what you are attached to and don't shortcut the rules. The rules are designed to keep you safe. What it gets down to is no one is more focused on you than you are. Life is good, take it from a 72 year old who is still climbing on a regular basis and who has never come close to falling from a tower. Falling is not necessary just because you work in high elevated places. Pay attention to your environment at all times. Identify and eliminate the risks. Tower work is not a game or a sport. It's not for bragging rights. It's a technical job and doing the job correctly is the goal. John

[@infinitecanadian]

I sorta want to go to Nashville. I guess you like the city, being a Tennesseean.

[@allanegleston13]

was going to say someting about tower accessability for the tech but adrian nova beat me to the punch.

[@jhettish]

It's not just the engineers but sometimes tower worker themselves. I've seen beacons in difficult locations without some tower erector making it more difficult. Primarily I've seen beacons that open back into the climber rather than away from the climber. I've also seen obstruction lights (the smaller steady burning red lights) installed five to six feet away from the tower. It was no big deal for them. The conduit and fixture were pre-wired and there was a new lamp inside. What happens when the lamp finally craps out? Makes for some tricky rigging for the guy who needs to replace that lamp. In the same vein I've also seen antennas installed in ways that make replacing them much more difficult than necessary. I've seen towers where the erectors have installed the sections upside down. I don't think design engineers ever think about the person who may have to do work on the structure they're trying to come up with.

[@benchedthatpiece]

Why are you not getting many chances to climb these days John? People don't believe me when I tell them sometimes it's just as bad to have too much work as opposed to not enough work. Great video, I enjoyed it!

[@jhettish]

The reason is the business itself. The jobs we've had until recently could be handled by Clay and Garrett. I find myself spending more time than I want to with the business end of things. Only a couple of weeks ago we started having some jobs that required my skill set. I've had to spend much more time than I want with the CEO role and problems with my house. I climbed a water tank today. 10/18/16

[@Fireship1]

+John Hettish did you make a video of the water tower climb?

[@lewiemcneely9143]

The CEO deal is what you don't get the big bucks for. Glad you sung a little. I was wondering if you'd swore it off but glad you didn't If this is what 4 college years got you I should've quit in grade school! And a water tank is better than nothing. Take Care!

[@jhettish]

No. I didn't have the video camera with me. I will say I made the climb up the tower (100 feet) without stopping but I kind of considered it 20 feet from the catwalk. The climb was to install a CAT5 cable my tech had forgotten to include in the installation. I had to get someone from the office to bring the cable and I had to leave another site and go to the tank. I had my climbing gear. Clay was with the tech and didn't have his. I generally have my main harness and a spare. At the moment I also have two Petzl Vertex helmets in my truck.

[@jhettish]

Water tanks can be kind of scary, especially when working on top of a slanted bowl. Preplanned safety lines is a must in my opinion. The CEO deal keeps the bucks coming in, company wide. Needless to say though I had a pretty busy day yesterday. This is my first time in the office since Sunday. John

[@Caseydrive1]

John: What is the wattage of the lamp? What is the voltage to the lamp? Can you buy the inner red reflector lense anywhere near you ? This fixture was taken down from a site near me because they no longer could buy the inner red Lense. The weight of the fixture is 86 pounds FYI. It was taken down in two pieces via rope from a water tower,

[@CreeseDF]

Your comment wasn't directed towards me, and I hate to respond to you 4 years late. You may know this by now. But these lights take 120 volts, and 620 watts. If you haven't found any lenses by now, check out eBay for some. I know I've seen a few being sold recently.

[@4thapack]

I've never seen K braced sections on a Rohn up that high. That's a beefy tower. I've seen K bracing up to over 100' before. Must have been a MMW loaded for a bunch of dishes or a big top mount broadcast stick.

[@jhettish]

Actually the tower was intended to go to 850 feet if I remember. I did a report on the tower and it had one of the original drawings. I could have had the full engineering reports but the customer didn't want to pay the $750 that Rohn wanted for the signed-stamped drawings. The beefy design was made to deal with the extra height and potential tenants. At the moment it's highly under-loaded. It's original mission was to support a UHF tv antenna. I believe that never happened once the city decided they couldn't go to 850 feet. They had the antenna installed in a rural area about 10 miles south of Nashville on an old 350 foot MCI tower on a large hill.

[@AlphaFlight]

Its clear who ever designs these towers does so when its on the ground . I would like to see more human friendly towers .

[@jhettish]

You're preaching to the choir, as some people say in the south. Just try to find a place to anchor your fall lanyard on many of these towers. A special committee of the Electronics Industry Association (EIA) establishes design criteria. This tower was designed in 1996 based on the standard at that time, EIA-222-E. The next set of specs ended in "F". Today the standard is EIA-222-G which includes language concerning worker anchor points. No law or government regulation requires owners to update old towers to new standards.

[@AlphaFlight]

John Hettish who would of thought. But everything has a code or spec now. I would still like to see them build work safe areas. I'm from the new generation and today in any trade schooling they teach safety and osha . Which I think is going to help people think safer.

[@jhettish]

Upgrading old towers would be impossible in both a financial and an engineering sense. A body of "experts" (and the EIA 222 groups are experts) decides to improve the design of towers and to make them safer. One of the most recent estimates indicated there were more than 242,000 towers in the US. There would probably be no towers if owners thought they had to upgrade their structures every time the 222 group made a new set of standards. Tower upgrades can run into the millions of dollars. Professional tower workers know how to climb older structures safely and be able to go home at night. It is good though that the "G" category is supposed to have plenty of places to anchor safety equipment to.

[@lennongroover4189]

I have this same model number kg114. How does it flash mine doesn’t

[@jhettish]

There is a control unit in the transmitter building. There is a sort of special lamp that fits the socket. If the beacon is to go back on the tower it needs to meet specifications provided by the Federal Aviation Agency and the 620 watt lamp but if it is just going to be used for a decoration the special socket can be removed and replaced by whatever will allow a regular lamp to fit inside and creat light. Tower Flashing beacons, like that one can be made to flash at 55 times per with a module by adding a bit of rewiring. Thanks for the comment. John Hettish

[@lennongroover4189]

@ no it won’t unless I were to have a little short tower stand for it in by dads back yard otherwise no it won’t go back on the tower. It was actually used on the roof of a house in Tennessee by people who wore tinfoil hats to call in aliens the person who was restoring the house I think said

[@lennongroover4189]

@ @ is a typo

[@lennongroover4189]

@ I want to keep it original no house hold lamps in it

[@stanpatterson5033]

I've been tempted to make this comment several times (before watching this latest video) about the droppings seen on the towers in your previous videos. Another viewer brought it up in the comments on this video, so here I go about it. With all of the bird crap that is found and is to be expected on towers where you guys climb, I would hope for the sake of your health that you wash your hands the very first thing after safe return to the ground. That said, knowing what a health hazard bird droppings can be, I wonder why (beyond the reason of absolute necessity) you would ever remove your gloves whilst higher than ground level. I do understand that dexterity is important while handling some tools or parts, or the need to scratch an ear (or whatever might itch) and you wouldn't want a befouled glove getting into some areas, hence a quick removal and replacement of a glove now and then. Thinking of things I learned about bulbs from school and college days, the higher intensity bulbs don't like to be touched by human flesh as the oil from our skin can cause "hot spots" on the glass, leading to weakness and potentially a premature failure. When handling bulbs that would burn with vicious intensity, it was standard procedure to wear cotton gloves when handling. And anytime that one of those sorts of bulbs was suspected to have made contact, it didn't hurt to take a very clean cloth and wipe it down as best as could be done to remove any possible foreign matter (like body oil, dust, whatever you didn't want accumulating on the outer surface) before inserting, or while in place, as best could be done. I suppose that the beacon bulbs for night lighting might not be that susceptible to this sort of harm, and in an instance like this, a tower tech would be more concerned about not wanting to lose the bulb, hence the bare-handed insertion. I don't imagine that there is a great amount of intensity required in beacon marker lights, how about the strobe tubes? Do they give off enough clout to become flesh-searing hot? Can't see them getting too hot. I would figure that there is enough delay between pulses that it remains somewhat cool (cool being a relative term). Anyways, enough with the bulbs, I didn't mean for this comment to become so intense, really just wanted to shine the light on the bird poop and hand sanitation situation. Always enjoy your videos, even if you aren't talking with the you tube viewers in mind as you capture the footage. Wish you great health and pleasant climbing conditions always.

[@jhettish]

Hello Steve, How are things in the UK today? (whilst?) There are several aspects to histoplasmosis. I've spent at least 44 years working with and on towers. I've been in 200 year old courthouse clock towers and in church steeples. Something you might not suspect from me is that I've spent quite a few years exploring caves in Middle Tennessee which is Karst country. In those caves it's not uncommon to ecounter very tall, ancient, piles of bat guano. I've been told (which doesn't make it accurate) that people who have lived in Tennessee for long periods of time have signs of histoplasmosis revealed during x-ray examinations, but the disease does not necessarily present symptoms of the disease. We have a lot of bird and bat droppings in Tennessee. Perhaps that should be one of our state symbols. :-) "Visit Tennessee, the guano state". The equipment we work on is usually mounted vertically and often is free of bird droppings but not always. There is no need for me or any other tower tech to rub their hands or any other body parts into the droppings in most cases but still, you indicate quite correctly that it is a potential health issue so I'm going to do a bit of research and try to determine what is real and what isn't. Yes, I do wash my hands when leaving a high-bird-dropping area. Most of all, when stopping for a meal or snack between tower sites, I do not touch food I'm about to consume without washing up. I do appreciate your call. It seems that you, like me, have the 60 word per minute curse. Many of my replies and posts are quite long also. :-) I took a typing course more than 50 years ago and due to my work with computers and business management it was probably the most important course ever taken.

[@jhettish]

Hi Stan, I do appreciate your comment. First lamps. The lamps we sell are made from Pyrex glass. They don't break when hit with cold water from a leaking beacon housing and there are no manufacturer listed precautions concerning contact by ungloved hands. When dropped from heights to 500 feet the often don't even break when hitting the ground. Strobe tubes are a different matter. The glass of the strobe susceptible to the skin oil weakening. Most of the strobe tubes we handle (Flash, TWR, ITL) are surrounded by a clear glass cylinder to protect it from human hand damage. Some tubes we handle (Flash high intensity, Orga high intensity and Honeywell high and medium intensity) are not protected in that sense but oddly enough those tubes rarely fail. We often are forced by circumstance to handle these tubes bare handed but we try to hold them by their contacts and not the glass. I've replaced hundreds of the tubes with the cylindrical but less than 10 of the Honeywell medium intensity tubes. As far as I know all the high-intensity strobes have Xenon tubes not inside a protective covering and we don't do very much high-intensity work. Now health and safety, I'm quite aware of the Histoplasmosis dangers. I'm a former 'caver' and have spent considerable time in caves over the years. Prehistoric bat droppings exist in caves thousands years after the bat's meal that created the droppings. I've heard that most Tennesseans carry the disease without symptoms but that may be an old-wives-tale (like not swimming after eating). One of the most common ways of being affected by the disease is by inhaling the "dust" left over by bird droppings. On towers there is plenty of ventilation so that part is not a problem. I've never had an employee over the past 34 years who showed signs of Histoplasmosis but that doesn't mean I don't train them as to the potential dangers. Recently we worked inside a 100 year old church steeple with piles of droppings everywhere. We were covered in plastic rain suits the entire time and used respirators since there was such a potential for inhaling the dust. Another way to get the disease, and any other bacterial malady, would be by ingesting it by food eaten by dirty hands. My guys have also been instructed as to the efficacy of washing hands to prevent that. When taking a glove off for better dexterity we general put the glove back on thus contaminating the glove to some extent. Washing up is still a really good idea. I supply waterless cleaners like Go-Jo to be carried on my trucks and used by my employees but my employees are also grown men and not children. The US Occupation, Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) tends to treat employees as though they have no understanding of anything and thus make the employer responsible for anything and everything that the employ might do to injure himself. it's the American way it seems. Of course most employers seem to do what they have to do to prevent fines from governmental agencies like OSHA and to prevent liability law suits. I will confess that much of what I do concerning employee safety is outlined in the previous sentence but I mainly do what I can to see the employee is safe for their own safety and the comfort of their families. As for why I personally work bare-handed in the midst of all that mess I have no good answer. I just do what I do and have been doing for 45 years. I've also lived in Tennessee from the age of four and then a 3.5 year break away from here in the Army, to now where I find myself 72 years old, wondering how I got so old so fast but extremely healthy so far. I'm pretty certain that my health comes from a lot of exercise playing soccer as an adult and racing motorcycles and never having smoked. By the way, I'm not disposed to washing my hands constantly like some people yet I'm far healthier than most, not just my aged contemporaries but also people much younger than me. My wife has had reactions to antibiotic causing a very painful Malady called c-difficile or more commonly called C-Diff. It comes from antibiotics killing not only the bad bacteria but also the good and necessary bacteria in the digestive system. It first occurred in 2013 and she still has incidences. She will, or at least would, take antibiotics at the drop of a hat. Could it be that we are prescribed too many antibiotics? Could it be that antibacterial soaps might just reduce our immunity? The deveopment of antibacterial resistant infections is on the rise possibly caused by over prescription and constant hand washing. I can't say for certain; I'm not a doctor or medical researcher. I do know that people didn't always die from infections prior to pennicillin though many did. The body would often fight the infection and win. I'm a firm believer in the body's natural anti-biotics carried largely in our white blood cells. John

[@ultimateunboxerguy9728]

that's what those red flashing lights are on radio tower's.

[@Mkdjn-14]

Greetings from south Korea, I am also a lineman in my country,i always have been wondering how do you work as usuall in your country? people think that my job is sort of 3D,which means Dangerous,Dirty,Disgusting But i am proud of myself

[@jhettish]

Tower work in the US is often considered "The most dangerous job in the world". I don't agree. I think certain tower technicians fail to use the most important safety tool available to them., That safety tool is their human brain. If the people who take this kind of work have the correct mind-set the job is not dangerous. The most dangerous thing we do is driving our cars or trucks from one site to another. If you're doing electrical utility work you'd be considered a hero in the US. All it takes is a group of people, or businesses doing without electricity for a week or more. Once the electricity is restored they praise the electric provider. Since many tower technicians in the US have trouble finding jobs when the mobile phone companies are not making major changes, I often suggest they apply for a job at their local utility but very few act on that suggestion. It could be they're afraid that something will be found during the medical examination that comes before the job. Primarily I'm speaking of the urine test. Fortunately my company doesn't have that problem with its workers. They never know when they're going to be tested and they pass the test every time. John

[@wadehicks9270]

I'll try not to bug you to awful much with questions I'm sure you get lots of um. But have you ever been up high on a tower and tornado sirens go off ?

[@jhettish]

I try to answer all my comments and they only average about one per day so don't worry about it. I personally have never seen a tornado but have driven through the aftermath and damaged caused. It's like what I saw in Vietnam. It looks like a bomb had gone off. Read the following story. In answer to your basic question, specifically no. However some very strong tornadoes stuck Murfreesboro Tennessee, where I had lived many years. We had moved out of our house in Murfreesboro to our new house near Shelbyville one week earlier. On this particular day a couple of tornadoes stuck landing first on our ex-neighbor's house then taking out all the houses down the street we'd just moved from. Our old house only had a couple of roof shingles messed up. At the time all of this was happening I was on a tower in Nashville. My wife called when I was on my way home. She was still working in Murfreesboro and drove home while the three funnels were touching down. She thought it was pretty cool to be observing that when her car started being sucked toward the funnels so she floored it and got moving. Before long she came to a traffic light that had just turned red and being the obey-er of rules stopped. The winds were getting worse as she sat there then the electricity failed and the traffic light went dark. She took off again but noticed a lot of cars parked on the side of the road and people in ditches. She couldn't figure out why they were doing that so she drove to our new home 25 miles away. A week later she was in a meeting in Nashville when a tornado stuck just outside the big building she was in. It was a stout building and they waited in the stairwell for the storm to stop. At the end of the second tornado one guy was dead when struck by a tree limb. All this happened in 1997. After her experiences I was left to conclude that trailer parks don't attract tornadoes; my wife attracts tornadoes. John (the fast typist)

[@thelightninghunter23]

You said the strobe tube is ~18 years old? Wow, I had the impression that they only last a few years at best. What's the average lifespan on the incandescent/xenon lights?

[@jhettish]

No, I actually said I replaced my first strobe tube in that particular beacon 18 years ago. It has been changed at least a couple of times since then. However I have seen a strobe tube last 12 years by the date code on the old tube. They'll actually live a long time if one of the storage capacitors opens, thus reducing the electrical impact on the tube. The tolerance of a strobe system is quite wide and can still meet specs with an open cap. Capacitance times voltage gives the luminescence value in Candella.

[@thelightninghunter23]

John Hettish Thanks! Good information.

[@steelem422]

They don’t make this easy for you guys don’t they think of servicing when they install?

[@markbutler9046]

7:52 AIR MAIL!!!

[@jhettish]

I didn't see anything at 7:52 but I'm guessing you're talking about my sending the old lamps to the ground. That was more UPS or Fedex, in that they do fly a lot of their packages. Maybe it's passive-aggressive on my part. :-) John

[@spiritwolf522]

How many watts are those bulbs?

[@abczyx]

waaaaattt? kidding; I'm curious too.

[@pmkleinp]

620 watts each.

[@jhettish]

I thought I answered last night. KZbin is strange in its response mechanism sometimes. Paul is correct.

[@abczyx]

It does act oddly indeed. For instance, I was notified of Paul's reply six times. :)

[@RoboticNerd]

Rip those light bulbs

[@jhettish]

Gotta have fun some way. :-) I guess that during the worse part of winter we need to go out in the "jungle" and retrieve years of lamps and other debris from the tower.

[@RoboticNerd]

John Hettish Lol, I want to climb a tower. But that would be illegal lol

[@jhettish]

Only if the owner doesn't want you to climb. Of course it would be good to get some sort of training in order to avoid crashing and burning.

[@RoboticNerd]

John Hettish I would agree lol

[@thebiglt2187]

Where is this tower located?

[@CreeseDF]

I tried finding it~ To no avail...

[@thebiglt2187]

I found it and filmed it once now

[@CreeseDF]

@@thebiglt2187 Please... Post it on the server, wont you?~

[@thebiglt2187]

@@CreeseDF yeah