Tower King II crew at the Auburn site

[Chris-KH2PM]

A friend of mine is an engineer at a local Raleigh TV station. He mentioned that a crew had been up on the tower at the digital WRAL transmiter site (Clayton HWY 70) for a few weeks now. Interestingly it is the same Tower King II crew that was featured recently on the National Geographic's Channel "Worlds Toughest Fixes". If you watched that show (particularly in HD) you'll know what I mean when I say these guys have big NADS. What an interesting job.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/worlds-toughest-fixes/3564/Overview

Link to the WRAL news story:

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/4206508/

Tower King II website:

http://towerking2.com/index.html

 

[w2lie]

Dateline Aired "Tower Dogs" this past summer..
I have it on my DVR, need to get it onto a DVD soon!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25736991/

 

[SCPD]

When I was 19, I climbed radio towers for a crew. It was actually a fun job, and seldom did I think about the danger. I guess being young and dumb at the time, I felt I was impervious to injury and/or death.

For those of you that have never climbed a tower (and I do not recommend doing so on a whim), it is a unique experience. As you near the top of the tower, you can actually feel it sway in the wind. Looking out, you could see almost forever. I used to carry a 35mm in my tool kit, and would sometimes snap pictures on the way up and way down.

Would I do that job today, at age 50? No farking way!

 

[reconrider8]

still have any of the pics you can up?

 

[Chris-KH2PM]

still have any of the pics you can up?

These are from 10 years ago. Stopped at the 1,200', 1,600 and 1,800' platforms

This tower has an elevator in it (thank goodness!).

 

[Chris-KH2PM]

A few more. We had to work on the UHF ham repeater and later an APRS digipeater.
I'm on the left..Matt is in the elevator.

 

[Chris-KH2PM]

Dateline Aired "Tower Dogs" this past summer..

I think I watched that show but it wasn't quite as captivating as the one
aired on the Nat Geo channel. Watch it in HD on a big TV and you'll
get shaky knees!

 

[whitehelmet1202]

Man, those pics bring back some memories of my days of stick climbing.

I have been up and down (at least 100 times each) the old WWAY analog tower in winnabow (2000 ft), both in the elevator and on the internal ladder when the elevator would stop working.

I have also been up and down the old WECT tower at White Lake. You wanna talk about a tower swaying in the wind, that was the stick that separated the radio geeks from the fearless....

Have been up on teh old Auburn WRAL tower twice a few years ago. I loved that tower, especially, looking at all of the antennae on each platform. Man that tower was loaded back then....

 

[SCPD]

These are from 10 years ago. Stopped at the 1,200', 1,600 and 1,800' platforms

This tower has an elevator in it (thank goodness!).

Great pics, I'm looking for mine. I've only moved around the country a dozen times since then, so they should be packed away somewhere. LOL