Stupid Site Tricks

Feb 15, 2001 12:00 PM, Catherine Applefeld Olson

The good news is that cell sites and communications towers are safer today than they ever have been. The onslaught of consolidation among wireless carriers and the transfer of tower management out of house to companies whose sole mandate is to oversee their day-to-day operations have meant a more effective focus on safety by dedicated experts.

“The environment has changed in the last couple of years,” said Bob Kelly, vice president of business development for SiteSafe, which tests the RF levels at sites. “In the old days the carriers did everything in-house. They built the towers, took care of the regulatory issues. Now they are out- sourcing more and more to tower companies, which tend to offer a turnkey solution and can act faster.”

Kelly said the tower companies appear to be taking a more active role in making sure their real estate is regulatory-compliant. “It is on their agendas and they are putting resources into it,” he said.

In addition, Kelly noted, communications towers by design are safer than more traditional rooftop sites. For starters, much of the activity on a tower can be controlled from a remote location, limiting the frequency of workers making the climb.

Of course when it comes to safety, there is always room for improvement. The intense competition that encircles the current wireless arena has forced companies to build out their networks at an often fast and furious pace, and at times growth has outpaced safety.

“The current high demand for communication towers creates an atmosphere that is not always conducive to placing safety first, and we know there are companies out there who are not following proper safety procedures,” said Patrick Howey, National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) administrator. “That is why NATE continues to encourage all sectors of the industry to be aware of their role in preventing injuries, and to make safety the number one priority every day.”

Indeed, wireless carriers and tower companies still fall prey to some procedures and mindsets that chip away at the safety of a given site. These “stupid site tricks” by carriers and tower companies have the end result of making a site less safe:

1. Failing to ensure that tower-erection and maintenance workers are properly trained and equipped

When you’re working on vertical real estate, clearly the preservation of human life remains the most vital safety goal. After a 1999 accident involving workmen on a tower in North Carolina where a father, son and another man fell to their death, the state division of OSHA began working with NATE to pinpoint tower-industry safety hazards and set up guidelines for precaution and inspection.

The resulting 14 points of tower safety — which range from guidelines about the kind of boots workers must wear to directions about filling out and acting on pre-job hazard surveys — still are being finalized but are slated to be released by 2002.

Yet as lofty as the North Carolina effort is, currently it is the only state endeavor of its kind. Additionally, as yet there has not been any movement on a federal level to designate tower-safety precautions.

“There is some confusion out there about what rules apply to towers regarding safety,” said Duane MacEntee, corporate director of health and safety at SpectraSite, which operates approximately 6,000 towers including some that house Cingular Wireless equipment.

“Right now it is like a quilt work, and from an administrative standpoint, it is important that we be able to go to one source for safety. … The federal government could use North Carolina as an opportunity to piggyback onto that rule and in some form or fashion adopt it federally.”

In the meantime, MacEntee added, it is critical that the industry looks out for its own.

“It’s not just about compliance with regulation,” he said. “It is about doing the right thing.

“A fall like what happened in North Carolina happens not necessarily with a large company or a large carrier. Many times it has to do with a small operation trying to fix something out there, and there is a lack of training about how to do things properly. It is incumbent on the established leaders of the industry to help them get to a level of competency.”

2. Not ensuring tower equipment is safe, up-to-date and redundant

In tandem with making sure workers are properly trained is the paramount task of ensuring all equipment meets a safety inspection before any tower job is undertaken.

“There are a lot of different regulations that apply to construction and steel erection, and our industry is somewhat unique because either there is nothing specific enough for us, or there are conflicting regulations,” MacEntee said. “No one knows where to turn for the right answer.”

3. Failing to take measures that would reduce the incidence of workers having to mount a tower in the first place

Although it is impossible to avoid all instances where a worker has to mount a tower, there is a handful of situations that, with a little advance homework, could be avoided. One such scenario regards the procedure towers must undergo to ensure they comply with an FCC regulation regarding AM tuning.

Because any vertical steel located within 3km of an AM station might inadvertently distort or block the signal, the rule states, the signal must be tested before and after the erection of the tower. If distortion is present, the tower can be “detuned,” a quick and safe procedure. However, if a carrier does not take the measurement before the tower goes up, there is no base figure from which to make calculations.

“There was a situation recently where a tower company put up a tower within 200 yards of an AM station and did not take any of the necessary premeasurements … and they had to take it down, detune it, put it back up and test again,” SiteSafe’s Kelly said. “For a lot of carriers the situation is one of honest ignorance of the law, but the regulation is there, and if they don’t take the proper premeasurement, it means someone has to get back up on the tower, which is never the first thing you want to do.”

4. Ignorance or disregard for FCC regulations regarding antennas located more than 10m above ground

“The biggest misunderstanding is that people feel that towers are categorically excluded from EME (emissions) calculation,” Kelly said. “There is a misconception that if you have an antenna 10 meters off deck then no work has to be done since the antennas are so high there are not large amounts of power on the ground. But they still need to be running a calculation that shows the FCC they are compliant. It is a very simple, very quick, cost-effective thing to do, but many people are still not doing it.”

Kelly acknowledged that the complex wording of the regulation could confuse many a carrier or tower company. However, those who carefully sift through the language will realize they must comply.

“It is categorically incorrect to operate as if they do not need to be compliant,” he said.

5. Not knowing the necessary information to properly test EME levels

In order to conduct an EME study, the tester needs to know information such as the power, antenna type, location of antennae, etc. Although this is not a big problem among tower operators, it still merits attention.

“Tower owners generally know this information; it is the rooftop owners whom it is harder to get this information from,” Kelly said. “When a carrier wants to hang antennas on an existing site, the tower company is also in a better position to say where the best place to locate them is to minimize EME issues.”

6. Operating a tower that is loaded with antennas

If your signal equipment is housed on a tower with upward of 50 to 75 other antennas, you are operating on a hot site. The encouraging news is that sites with so much equipment tend to be those operated by relatively large tower companies with executives devoted to safety, but they still need to be watched.

“We’ve looked at towers where they are just loaded with antennas,” Kelly said. “You can try to model them or go with another kind of safety precaution, but they are still very hot sites.”

7. Failing to upkeep tower maintenance past mandated deadlines

Meeting safety regulations by predetermined deadlines is obviously important. But so is the day-to-day maintenance of a cell site even when regulators are not knocking at the door.

“As long as carriers are putting out energy from a tower, they have to continue to be vigilant,” Kelly said. “Cellular phones put out a half-watt of power; towers and rooftops put out a whole lot more than that. The general public is going to become more informed on this issue, and the carriers (that are not vigilant) will be seen as having had years to take care of the situation and didn’t. It makes sense for them to invest a little capital now so they do the right thing and don’t end up looking like the villain.”

Olson (Catholson@aol.com) is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, VA.