8 Responses to “Tower Dogs”

1. 

   Steve Buchheit July 22nd, 2008 at 9:31 am

   Jumped out of a perfectly good airplane? Why the heck would you want to do that? You know they land those things on the ground without any wires. Only on ships to they use arrestor wires. Really, most landings are very pleasant.

   We have a saying for the young people who do all the dangerous stuff, and twist themselves into knots to get at certain pieces of machinery, we call them, “Young and dumb.” I try very hard not to be that way anymore.

2. 

   Matt Mitchell July 22nd, 2008 at 8:58 pm

   I did it because I wanted to be able to say I’d done it. And at the time, young and dumb was a very qualifying category to stuff me into.

3. 

   Dana July 25th, 2008 at 1:43 pm

   I watched the show and found it very interesting. I wondered if I could do that job. I’ve never done anything exciting in my life although I did bungee jump once. As I was watching the show I kept wondering what it would be like perform a job, day-in, day-out that wasn’t sitting at a desk.

4. 

   Matt Mitchell July 25th, 2008 at 10:14 pm

   Well, when the day starts out it’s pretty rough. You’ve got a ladder to climb before you can even begin work, and the climbing is very tiresome. Sometimes it’s only 150 to 300′, but often, in the case of radio and television, it’s over a thousand feet. Having an 1100′ ladder to climb first thing in the morning can be a depressing thought, especially if you’re not feeling particularly well. Once you’re up there, though, it’s absolutely grand. It just takes one to three hours to climb a thousand feet, depending on how fast you are and how much weight you’ve got to carry up. Remember, if you’ve forgotten that one wrench that you needed at the top, you’ve only got one choice on finishing the job. Usually Tower Dogs will carry practically their whole tool box up with them, just in case they need something they didn’t think about on the ground. But at the top, well, there aren’t many other jobs that can compare. Even in the summer time there’s a good wind, so it usually isn’t very hot. But in the winter that same wind is brutally cold. I’ve been across the Arctic Circle in winter, but the coldest I’ve ever been in my life was up 1800′ on a tower in Alabama in November in the middle of the night. Exciting? Yeah. For sure. One wrong move, one slip, one simple accident, and you could kill yourself along with a few others along the way. It’s a tough way to make a living.

5. 

   Matt Mitchell December 8th, 2008 at 8:53 am

   I was searching radio tower climbing when I came across your site, then lingered here to read your posts because my name is Matt Mitchell too, so I figured there must be some sort of odd destiny in play here… regardless, I landed on my feet the first time I went skydiving too, and I’m also interested in climbing radio towers, not for fun, but professionally, I grew up with a father in the radio business and watched as people had to climb towers for maintenance such as lightbulb changes etc. I’m curious though as to how someone actually gets into the business of climbing towers professionally. Anyways, I’m going to keep reading what you have to say, it’s all very interesting, and my grandmother suggested that I jump out of airplanes over the cemetery to save time, but I just day good luck.

6. 

   Matt Mitchell December 8th, 2008 at 10:59 am

   @ Matt Mitchell: Here’s how I got started: I was looking for a career change, and at the time having no education or experience to speak of, thought about different ways in which I was “uniquely qualified” for work. One was that I’ve never been afraid of heights. I thought one day that somebody must change those light bulbs out on towers, so I looked up “Tower” in the Yellow Pages. There was only one entry, and I called them up and got an interview the next day. There’s pretty much only two qualifications that you need to have to work towers: be unafraid of heights and know how to use hand tools. They can teach you everything else. They hired me on the spot and I was working the next day on a 200′ tower in Chatanooga. They are not very picky when it comes to climbers because there are so few who can do the job. If that’s what you’d like to do, just find a tower company and call them up. I’ll bet they’ll give you a try.

   Good luck!

7. 

   Roberto December 23rd, 2008 at 1:28 am

   I sometimes contemplate a career change just to spice up my life. I have looked at being a body snatcher, the guy that picks up dead bodies, which does not pay well. I do not want to take a pay cut. I currently have a base salary of 55,000, which in the Central Valley in California is a decent wage. How much can you make as a beginning tower climber? Did you get some time of certification? Does a seasoned tower climber get paid more or is it a job by job paycheck? Did you have steady work as a tower climber? How many companies did you work for and did they offer the same salary?

8. 

   The Thousand Foot Climb « Genre Bender January 4th, 2009 at 10:14 pm

   [...] the years 1994-1996, I worked as what’s come to be known as a Tower Dog. And, for many reasons, I use that experience a lot to help me describe what writing is like. [...]