As I got close to the top of the tower, paper wasps started to show up. Despite the wind (30-40 mph, ranging from
gusts to continuous) they still lingered, mainly around the top guy wire bracket and light. I couldn't see any
hole in the light they might be getting into so maybe they have nests in the square tubing that makes up most
of the guy wire bracket? With dozens of wasps circling and landing on the light, we made the call to cancel the
light replacement, and see if we could at least get the two antennas mounted. (less than a foot away) If they
don't have a nest up there I can't guess why they're congregating at 300ft, there aren't any other insects for
them to eat way up here? It's a very unexpected complication no one has seen before.
Thankfully, the wasps started dissipating as we were raising up the UHF antenna, and the appearance of the
antenna in their airspace appears to have scattered them. I'm not sure what I would have done if they had
suddenly gotten aggressive. Paper wasps are usually pretty chill though. If those had been something like
hornets or yellow-jackets, I wouldn't have gotten near them.
I also managed to crush my right index finger when the UHF antenna (with its bracket only lightly tightened)
suddenly slipped down the leg while I was repositioning. Last climb it was sunburn, and this time it's a
banged up finger. I guess every climb has its body tax?
Nothing ever goes 100% smooth, and today was no exception. The ground crew had to make a few trips to pick up
things, it took awhile to get a rhythm on raising and lowering such a long distance, and I had to pause frequently
to plan the next step. Ignoring replacement of the light, we basically ran out of daylight at just the point
we ran out of things to do. It went quite a bit longer than expected, but it seems to almost never go as planned.
IMG_4461 wasps:
IMG_4472 shoe wasp:
IMG_4461 wasps.MOV (29 MB)
IMG_4472 shoe wasp.MOV (28 MB)
highest resolution images
last updated 09/29/2025 at 19:17:21 by make_www_index.command version 2025.06.28.A
