There's a huge project going on at my part of my work, and when I say huge, I'm mostly talking about cost and height -- a small crew of arcane specialists is taking apart about nine hundred vertical feet of rigid, flanged coaxial radio-frequency transmission line and installing the same amount of replacement line, just about twenty feet at a time.
Inside the building, I am working with a tech from an equipment manufacturer to complete the assembly and adjustment of the equipment that connects to all this, having already worked with an electrician to get the primary power connected to it.
It makes for long days and an early start -- the riggers like to be setting up when twilight starts hinting along the horizon and aloft in time to greet the dawn. Their day will end when they run out of light or they begin to hit physical limits. It's a long way down and they must always leave sufficient reserve to get back to the ground safely. (And you thought your job was difficult?) Simply climbing is one thing; climbing and doing useful work is a whole other level of challenge.
Meanwhile, the inside work often runs into the early evening. Things come up, processes can't be interrupted until complete, and so on.
As the only representative of my employer at the site, I have to be there for all of it and I have work of my own connected to the project to get done, too.. With all of that, I'm working eleven to twelve hours a day. So postings are short and will arrive at slightly irregular times until this project is done.
I don't like working at heights.
ReplyDeleteMy hat is off to those who do it routinely.
I remember days like that. Projects squeezed in between critical missions. Work very long days 6 or 7 days a week. Climbers, equipment specialists working on their stuff while the installation crew runs miles of cables under floors into racks full of equipment. Working so long that they start to make mistakes and I have to make everyone knock off early, go get a good meal and rest.
ReplyDeleteThose were good days and I miss them. Could not even begin to work like that anymore. But we got the work done before our time ran out. "Any time, anywhere!" World-wide.
Hope it all goes smoothly. May the crews be completed and on to their next jobs before Murphy knows they arrived at your site.
ReplyDeleteWhy are they replacing the transmission line? Is it corroded from lack of dry air/nitrogen pressurization?
ReplyDeleteGod Bless you and the riggers doing that outside high wire work. 20 feet of open space between me and the ground makes my toes clench around my heels - fraidy cat of heights. I hope the job comes off without a hitch and you can go back to your more normal work schedule.
ReplyDeleteMerle, it's an interesting situation: the line is okay but the sections are the wrong length for the new channel the station will be on. If the connecting flanges are a whole-number multiple of a wavelength apart, bad things can happen.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the good wishes, everyone. the tower crew thank you, too. Theirs is the only work I can think of that compares to working aboard a full-size sail-driven cargo vessel; it's not easy even on good days.
Reminds me of my ironworking days in the early 70's. Stay safe everyone.
ReplyDeleteWill you make the phase six deadline?
ReplyDeleteNope! Not a hope of it. Tower crew was too long delayed by the Texas floods followed by someone with a bad line burnout.
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