Tower Work

This is more than a little belated, but this last fall I got a job working on radio towers, courtesy of my buddy Greg who hooked me up with one of the coolest bosses ever: Joe Harrington of Harrington Tower services. How might a semi-pro slacker like Jake get a job like this, you might ask? Well, a major prerequisite is that one not be afraid of heights, because when you are on top of a 300 foot AM self support tower, that sucker sways like bamboo in a spring breeze.

Most often I was painting and pressure washing with coworker Tyler "Mooner" McAdams (painting effects seen below), but at times I had the opportunity to learn how to install coaxial cable, microwave dishes, FM bays, and to work on my ratcheting skills. Sometimes the weather would get pretty nasty on us, as condensation from a cloud tends to make a tower "rain," for lack of a better term. But it was those clear days, the days when you could see all of the Washington peaks lined up that made the job more than worth it. It was one more reason to like hanging out in a harness for long periods of time.



Towers are usually located up in the high places, which tend to have rather protean weather. For illustration, below are two pictures of a tower near Olympic national park, taken 5 minutes apart. Don't be ashamed if you can't see it in one of them, because I could hardly see my work boots right around then. Five minutes later the sun came out, it warmed up by at lease 25 degrees and I could see the ocean, which was a score or more miles distant.