How about some Hee-Bee Gee-Bee's for New Years Day???!!

This is pretty cool. I agree with one of the first comments in the comment section, because I too just learned I can hold my breath for a whole 26 minutes!!!

Okay, some explanation. What follows is is a 28 minute video documenting the installation of a very large (and very heavy) antenna on top of a 1,516 foot antenna tower in Florida. It's an absolutely staggering first-person view of the whole process from atop the tower and on the ground. There is no corny music (thankfully!), just the audio of the whole process and some descriptions of what is going on. Spectacular video! Probably one of the best I've seen on You Tube...ever. Not for the feint of heart though; this one will get your blood pumping! WOW!

I strongly recommend watching to at least 26 minute mark because the installation is far from 'routine', and they have some serious problems near the end where someone could have easily been killed.



I'll bet ever since you were a kid you looked up at those monster radio towers and wondered...how to they get all that stuff up there?

Well, now you know.

Happy New Year!

In my opinion, the disassembly of the tower isn't nearly has hair-raising as the re-assembly! Bolting up steel is hard enough when it's hanging from a crane which is sitting on a fixed point on the ground. I can't imagine trying to bolt up steel hanging from a moving helicopter 1,500 feet above ground. Plus, trying to do it in the rotor-wash of the helicopter while perched upon a tiny platform just ups the adrenaline factor an order of magnitude or so!

The Erickson pilots are awesome I saw them working one time on a project I was on, but nothing this crazy. When I saw them they were just setting air handler units on top of a Chrysler plant. Still cool to watch though, but this one is on a whole other level!

ETA - If that spreader bar hadn't miraculously hooked around the ladder rung on the antenna, the whole assembly would have fallen down the tower until it reached the end of the choker and very likely would have pulled someone (or two) off. Just crazy lucky!!

I worked in a coal mine and we rode an elevator 1300 feet straight down. You WILL NOT get me that high above ground. Not without a parachute...or an airplane.

Preferably both.

a reply to: DAVID64

I've been in some Trona mines in Wyoming and they were pretty deep, but you didn't really get any perspective in the elevator because you couldn't really see down from inside. You could only see the levels flashing by as you went down.

I agree, this is some CRAZY stuff. I'm not too afraid of heights, but no way could I ever do this!!

I must still be inebriated. I was expecting a video of "Stayin' Alive"

a reply to: ColeYounger

Take out a couple "Hee"s and you'd have been right!

We have some guys at work who just got their "Tower Climber" certifications. Our towers are only 350 feet, but there's no elevators on them (like the tower in the video has), so the guys have to actually climb the tower from the ground.

No thanks!

Oh, and one thing they didn't show in the video was the heavy duty trailer they have to use to haul these guy's massive iron balls around in!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
That would be a equal to a hundred and fifty one story building. Taller than the empire state building. I could not imagine climbing up that thing! I get a nose bleed standing on a chair.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

That's one thing I could not do. I'm deathly afraid of heights. We're talking heart attack. I don't think any hypnosis or 'reprogramming' could change it.

The comedian Steven Wright had a funny joke about the subject.
"Some people are afraid of heights.
I'm afraid of widths".

Made it to 6:28 and decided it was not my path to riches. "butterflies, dither, jimjams, jitters, nerves, screaming
meemies, shakes, shivers, whim-whams, willies, skid marks...... Nope, Never.

a reply to: Plotus

Well then you didn't get to see them accidentally release the main load line instead of the choker lines on the spreader bar causing the whole spreader assembly to crash down into the top of the tower right on top of them.

Gotta' love how the one guy says...I think I might have pulled something (i.e. a muscle); that bar slammed down right there."

Really above clouds.

My heart would give up.

a reply to: Fisherr

Okay, I can't get up now!

My sphincter won't let go of the buttons on the upholstery!!

OMG, I could only watch the first few on that first video, absolutely terrifying.

That is crazy high FCD!
when I was young and dumb I climbed a 150 radio tower with no harness and put my initials at the top.
I couldn't prove it though, no one would climb up there to see.

I don't know about going up on this though. Holy smoke that's high! I guess long as there's something solid to fasten to I'd be all right.

Happy New Year! Nice find!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

If you ever come to Germany, visit Bertchesgarden, a salt mine that is 2,000 meters under the earth with a large lake.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
At first I that the title was about the Bee Gees lol. Screw that, though, I hate heights.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
hoooo boy...
and I thought having 40 foot ladder perched on a 20 foot high balcony slipping under me was sphincter exercise.