Climbers will undoubtedly do a second take on the March 2017 cover photo of QST (shown here for educational purposes). Although an inspiring shot with and for youth, the photo illustrates a number of safety alarms for climbers of towers. IOW, this is NOT a good example for anyone. I will let climbers far more experienced than me list the various mistakes shown on this photo. Let's use it to remind ourselves: SAFETY FIRST. 73 Chip W1YW
Chip, its a good thing you brought this up to the front News page on the Zed. The photo has drawn embarrassingly negative attention for amateurs and buzz from tower professionals as well, see links below, http://wirelessestimator.com/articl...hot-could-send-high-schoolers-to-their-death/ http://wirelessestimator.com/articl...ent-was-never-in-danger-while-climbing-tower/ Hopefully the corrective "teachable moment" will be appreciated by the well meaning instructors, photographers, and editors at QST, as well as the students. 73 de John - WØPV
There is already a big thread about it here: https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/how-not-to-climb-a-tower.556846/
This is news and belongs on the news page. It is a big deal. But I am glad you also brought it up Tom, and got people thinking. QST made a major glaring error this time. 73 Chip W1YW
Let me give you a media person's perspective on this story. I'm not speaking on behalf of QST or the ARRL, just as someone who cranks out a lot of media (including a few years publishing a regional ham magazine). The reason I'm posting this is the issue had attracted the kind of snarky nastiness that besets media (and politics) today. Once again, the issue is pushed to the limit... and this by people who would decry any whiff of political correctness in anything else they might come across. But because they caught the ARRL in an oversight, let's all pile on (or as one wag on Reddit noted, he gets all his safety training information from the cover of a magazine). First, QST editor Steve Ford has already apologized for the lack of attention to detail. That's in a Facebook post that I saw copied, but haven't been able to find myself. What I saw copied was a boilerplate mea culpa without details on how it happened. Maybe we'll get that, but in the absence, I'm left to some 'professional speculation.' The cover was not illustrating a story on How to safely climb a tower. It was the Antenna Issue, and having a young ham on the cover in climbing gear, apparently on a tower (but probably no more than two feet from the ground, or else the photo was taken from a drone) looked to the production staff like a nice way to present that issue. I'll go out on a limb and guess that nobody on the production staff was a routine tower climber, or had all the safety skills and training employed by professional climbers today. I've climbed and help build plenty of towers, from the days when nothing held me to the structure but one leg wrapped around the cross braces to a full-on harness and hard had. But I'd never call myself a safety expert. I do know that I can't climb the commercial towers that hold my club's repeaters anymore, without being licensed, bonded, etc. The QST production staff are experts at producing a magazine, but not all hams climb towers. If I had been noodling available pictures for the cover, I wonder if I'd have given any thought to the safety setup? I wouldn't have been aware of any of the violations that hams have pointed out. It didn't look like the harness was secured around the ham's waist. When I first looked at the issue, nothing called my attention to it. So Steve admits that safety should have been considered, and it's a lesson learned (how many of those have you had, and forgotten, in your career?). And experts could (and some probably did) tap him on the virtual shoulder and said, uh, hey, dude, you kind of missed something here. But others reached for the click-bait of Cover girl climber shot could send high schoolers to their death. THEIR DEATH! Because yeah... I get all my tower climbing safety information from the cover of QST, but I'm too busy to read the article about it. 73, Gary KN4AQ
Nonsense Gary. There is no 'click-bait' in this news item and OP. And no one here has reached for it. Its the safety of a young person, shown as lacking in this example. Don't confuse this with the offal you have seen elsewhere. There is NO apology by WB8IMY on the ARRL web page--its main and cynosurial site. I don't care for or about those with 'snarky nastiness' (whatever that means....sort of coined illiteracy IMO), and you would be empty-handed in trying to ascribe that to me. The point is amply made in the OP: safety concerns. Safety...CONCERNS. Perhaps you would like to contribute suggestions on how that safety could have been improved for this young person in this pursuit? With due respect, there is no way of knowing whether this is a girl or a boy(by appearance OR name), and that point is irrelevant. It is a young person doing a cool (but dangerous) thing, with long hair that can be caught, among other issues. Once this news OP hits the main page, I will be delighted to fill in any blanks that might arise on the blaring safety issues.
What I don't understand is why QST didn't just use a real, professional tower climber for their cover? They have done so in past issues, even in recent years. If the goal for the cover was to show a climber, why not show somebody doing an actual climb with real climbing gear? A professional would have presented an accurate depiction of the activity, with appropriate gear, being performed safely, and all of this could have been avoided.
Trust me. The last thing you need for the cover of QST is a professional tower climber. Best part of the current cover is Chase is sporting Seahawks colors. Line green shirt and the blue of DBI Scala harness. Go Hawks!
The editors at QST ought to know better. This isn't the first time they have been called out for an image that indicated a neglect for safety in tower climbing. The Oct 2004 issue, page 54, apparently created a similar outburst in online ham tower forums. And that wasn't the cover! These comments are not an attack on "media" for subjective reasons. QST covers aren't performance art; neither is it a popular science magazine. It's a technical journal for members of the national association for amateur radio. Their standards for correctness in such illustrations should be at the highest level. Hard to believe the effort was too much to make the photo subject and composition set up to depict proper safety measures ... if they really had a clue. The ARRL should publish a highly visible corrective statement, quickly, and seriously consider commissioning the composition of an article on tower climbing safety (has there ever been one?) I would bet many ham / pro climbers would gladly contribute material.
This is such a bad thing to have happened. They should have been more prepared. I have a doubt, what benefit does the work alone legislation monitoring bring for the lone workers? Will it notify, if the worker has made some mistake with the safety precautions? I am curious to know. How does the worker's safety be assured in such cases?
You think that is unsafe? Did you see "The Rock" (D.Johnson) holding a stack of tires over his head in a Ford commercial? Those tires towered over him .......... They try to sell stuff at the expense of safety. Is there anything left to believe in anymore ?
RIGHT ON BROTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just turn on the TV and you will see during prime time things like the "Cleveland Show" that talks about gay rape sex!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then change the channel and watch killing of other humans, REALLY...................................................
