Working at Heights

If you are in the commercial radio game, know the risks and how to mitigate them, well you have about 10 minutes to go and grab a coffee – nothing new for you here.

Most clubs and many individual hams have antennas that we want to have at something higher than 2m off the ground. Most hams that are interested in HF in particular are dealing with large antennas at heights of 8m up to at least 30m and sometimes higher. Anyone interested in long distance VHF & UHF terrestrial communications will be looking for even more height.

To get antenna in the air, we either need to bring the mast down to ground level so we can assemble and attach the antenna on the ground before putting it back up, or we need to get the antenna up to the mast and attach it at heights.

The be able to work on the ground, takes a mast that is not only capable of holding the antenna when vertical, but also supporting the mast and antenna as it is brought from horizontal to the vertical plane. This increases the stresses on the mast and also requires a much heavier foundation – all resulting in more money spent on the entire structure. If you think you will be working on antennas regularly, regardless of the increased cost, this may well be the cheapest way to get to your ham heaven. Installing antenna on an erected structure that is always vertical has plenty of challenges, but the initial outlay for the structure becomes far less. The third option is to have something that can be winched down to a more manageable height for the best of both worlds.

The downside of a tilt-over tower is that there is a physical limit to the height of a tower that is tilted over before it becomes hideously expensive. The downside to attaching an antenna at height is that there are safety issues to resolve – hence the real reason for this article.

So…. You or your club as secured a 30m mast. Its not tiltable or winchable so the antenna needs to be mounted at height. Most clubs have at least a couple of people who are game enough and young enough to do the work, so all good; ready to roll. Now let’s stop and look at the risks and consequences. I think looking at the consequences is actually a good place to start. What can go wrong… at worst, falling from a height of 30m is most likely going to be fatal. No surprise there. Our guys wear harnesses so that wont happen. Harnesses can break, or if not worn correctly, the wearer could slip out of it during an event. Losing a club member to a fall or injury… well you know, we can find more members. We could hang around outside Ham College once every two months and see if we can find more members. The fact is that a death or serious injury at your club is probably going to be terminal for the club. Not to mention the guilt you all feel for the injured or killed member and his/her family. Definitely something to be avoided yes?

What is our mitigation for this? You can make sure that the equipment being used is within spec. Harnesses have a defined lifespan and in the meantime need to be inspected by someone who actually knows what they are looking for, at least once a year, but preferably before each use. Any intermediate or advance qualified rigger could do this inspection task.

The next mitigation is to have the climber appropriately trained for the task. This means he knows how to wear the harness and how to use it. That’s good. We may be over some of the larger and more serious consequences. What training does he need and where can he get it? The absolute minimum is “working at Heights”. This shows you how to wear a harness, and some of the legislation about working at Heights. Good if you are working from a ladder or on a roof etc. Not so useful for working on a 30m structure. For this you need at least a basic rigging ticket. This is a qualification often held by technicians and allows them to climb a mast and change out a connector or a small antenna. To do more work than this, you really need to look at intermediate and advanced rigging courses.  

So you have one basic rigger or even an advance rigger in your club. Even the most experienced rigger can have issues whilst working at heights. Could be a heart issue, spraining a muscle, a minor fall etc. what do you then? The law tells us that if you have someone working at heights, you need a plan for getting him back to ground (safely). What does this entail? If you think being able to ring 000 is your plan, think again. Someone being held by his/her harness after a minor fall, has less than 20 minutes before he is in real danger of a fatal outcome once on the ground. The harness can cause dangerous toxins to accumulate which once the harness is released, allows these toxins to circulate around the body and cause a fatal shock. Any plan you come to needs to include the resources for rescue to be on site during the work. How do we do that? I don’t think Urban Search & Rescue will want to give up their time every time you want to do some work on the club tower. There is a qualification called “Tower Rescue” that most professional riggers and many technicians have taken and equips you with the knowledge to recover a rigger at heights in trouble. In addition to the training, you need a tower rescue kit, which contains rope and other hardware to facilitate a rescue. This allows you to rescue someone in trouble long before it becomes a potentially fatal incident.

Can’t find suitable riggers and appropriately trained tower rescue personnel? The next solution is to look at an elevated work platform. This takes many forms but at up to 11-15m, is often a trailer mounted “Cherry Picker”. You can hire a Cherry picker up to 11m from most plant hire places for around $300/day. These can be hired with no qualifications up to 11m; but realistically you should have at least a working at heights qualification so you know how to use the harness you should be wearing whilst working from it. The advantage of using an EWP is your rescue plan then comes down to someone on the ground knowing how to bring the platform back to ground. There are 1.5 day courses to operate EWPs of greater than 13m.

OK so we need all these qualified people to do all this work. We have around 6 radio clubs in the Perth Metro area so that is a lot of appropriately trained people we need in the ham community. How do we resolve this? Well, all the clubs could get together and organise a single training course, and split the costs… Another idea for all clubs to share in the costs of a purchased EWP. Second hand ones aren’t so expensive, and the costs of maintaining one would be reduced given it probably wouldn’t be used more than maybe 6 times a year. Might be viable… Maybe we need a VK6 branch of the WIA to bring us closer together so we could make purchases like this… (a subject for another day maybe).

So hopefully this has given you all some pause to think about the risks of working at heights. If that is all that is achieved, my work is done.