some pics from transmission hot stick'n school

THOUGHT YOU GUYS WOULD LIKE TO SEE SOME OF THE PICS FROM SCHOOL, MAYBE THINGS WILL MAKE A BIT MORE SENSE NOW. THANKS AND HAVE A GREAT MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND EVERYONE. IM GOING TO TENNESSEE TO SEE MY TWIN BROTHER SO I'LL SEE IF HE'S GOT ANY GOOD CONTRACT STORIES FROM THE OUTSIDE FOR EVERYONE.

AS ALWAYS,

BE SAFE ~ HURTMAN DAN

heat'n up, move'n out!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry it's been a few days since the last post but I should have some pic's soon from the transmission yard so you can see us in action hot stick'n and as far as the Bismark job, we are DONE. I think we ended up changing out around 50 poles, mostly single phase poles out in the country but still, good learning/work for an apprentice to do!

Alright, so to bring you up to speed on what were doing now ~ For the past week we have been doing a underground job in Dewey Illinois. The local Grain Coop, in Dewey is upgrading there service. We wrecked out the Three pot bank that was there, they had your standard wye/delta closed bank, I think the transformers were 500's and we installed a pad mount which you can see in the pics that had 8 runs of secondaries on her. That's a lot of bending and pulling to get all those bastards in there the right way. Also, since it's 3 phase ~ you'll notice that there are three primary elbows on the left side of the can. All the apprentices did this pad mount so we'll see if she blows tomorrow when we close it in and heat everything up. We are also going to re-conductor about 6 spans of number #4 ACSR. What we did was tear down the old #4 and we just ran rope up thru dollies that we placed on the arms and we strung 1/0 ACSR so that should up the power a bit and it looks a whole lot better than it did before. We probably should have changed out a few of the buck poles but Ameren is strictly doing must do work until the rate case get's settled.

Well, other than that not much is going on but again, I'm sorry I haven't been posting much lately, but it's been HOTT and I've been tired as hell. My better half has convinced me to start a work out plan so right after work I've been heading to the gym. So we'll see if I can't step it up a bit, and I should be able to post a few more blogs in the near future.

be safe

hurtman dan

TO THE TOP OR TO THE SHOP...BITCH!!!

SO WE FINISHED UP ON FRIDAY IN THE TRANSMISSION YARD AND I CAN SAY THAT NOT A SOLE FELL OFF ANY OF THE OLD AND RATTY POLES!!! THAT'S ALWAYS A CONCERN BECAUSE OF THE SHAPE THAT SOME OF THOSE POLES ARE. YOU GOTTA REALIZE THAT OVER FORTY APPRENTICES HAVE BEEN UP AND DOWN SOME OF THESE POLES PROBABLY OVER A HUNDRED TIMES EACH SO THEY CAN GET PRETTY CHEWED UP. WE ENDED UP CHANGING OUT EIGHT POLES IN THE POLE YARD,THAT'S ALWAYS KINDA FUN BECAUSE I DON'T GET TO CHANGE OUT MANY POLES AT WORK, OR WHAT I MEAN IS THAT I DON'T GET TO RUN THE CONTROLS AS MUCH AS I PROBABLY SHOULD. AND AT THE TRAINING CENTER THEY HAVE A HAND HELD REMOTE SO YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO STAND ON THE TRUCK, YOU CAN ACTUALLY GET UP NEXT TO THE POLE WHEN SETTING IT.

SO ALITTLE ABOUT THE TRANSMISSION TRAINING : WHEN HOT STICKING TRANSMISSION YOU REALLY NEED TO HAVE A GOOD GRUNT THAT HAS EVERYTHING IN ORDER AND CAN TIE KNOTS. I WISH I HAD THIS TRAINING EARLIER CAUSE I'VE ALWAYS BEEN PRETTY GOOD AT TIE'N KNOTS AND WELL FOR THE FIRST YEAR AND A HALF AS AN APPRENTICE YOU PRETTY MUCH SPEND IT ON THE GROUND WAITING FOR YOUR JOURNEYMAN TO FINISH UP THE TASK AT HAND. BUT YOUR GRUNT WILL SEND YOU UP ANY AND ALL SADDLE'S AND PUSH STICKS OR PULL STICKS. SOME PEOPLE CALL THEM JEW CLAWS....JUST IN CASE SOME OLD TIMER IS READIN:) BUT YOUR ALSO GONNA NEED SOME CRADLES AND LADY FINGERS....ALL KINDS OF ATTACHMENTS, BELL HOLDERS....AND A LONG HAND LINE:) YOU WOULD THINK THAT YOUR SHOULDERS WOULD HURT TONS FROM WORKING ABOVE YOUR HEAD ALL DAY BUT AGAIN, WHEN THE GRUNT IS HOLDING ALL THE WEIGHT WITH THE HAND LINE IT'S MAKE YOUR JOB PRETTY EASY. I'LL TRY AND SCAN THE PICS I HAVE OF THE TRANSMISSION YARD AND WE EVEN USED A HOOK LADDER FOR A BIT. ANYWHO, BACK TO THE SHOW UP TOMORROW AND WILL HAVE TO TRY AND GET BACK IN THE SWING OF THINGS, I THINK THAT WE MIGHT STILL HAVE A FEW SINGLE PHASE POLES TO SET IN BISMARK AND THEN WE HAVE AN UNDERGROUND JOB AT ONE OF THE LOCAL GRAIN ELEVATORS SO IT WILL BE A BIT OF A CHANGE BUT IM UP FOR THE CHALLENGE.

TALK TO YA L8TER,

HURTMAN DAN

HOT STICK'N, THE LOST ART......

HEY GUYS,

SORRY ITS BEEN A FEW DAYS SINCE I WROTE, I'VE BEEN UP AT SCHOOL FOR THE PAST WEEK AND HAVE 4MORE WONDERFUL DAYS UP HERE IN GOOD OLE DECATUR ILLINOIS AT THE TRAINING SITE. LAST WEEK WE DID SOME DISTRIBUTION HOT STICK'N. WHAT I MEAN IS WE UNTIED AND PUT NEW CROSSARMS UP WITH OUT EVER TOUCHING THE WIRES/PHASES. AT THE COMPANY I WORK FOR WE CAN RUBBER GLOVE OFF THE POLE 4KV, BUT NO VOLTAGES ABOVE THAT AKA....12KV, 34.5KV AND SO ON. SO LEARNING THIS PART OF THE TRADE IS GOING TO BE VERY USEFULL SOME DAY WHEN WERE WORKING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS ON A 12 KV 3 PHASE POLE THAT NEEDS AN ARM CHANGED OUT AND WE CAN'T GET A BUCKET TO. I KEEP SAYING THAT I'LL POST SOME PICTURES BUT THE WEATHER HASN'T BEEN THE BEST AND I CAN'T GET AWAY TO SNAP A FEW PICS AS EASY AS I CAN A WORK. BUT NEVER THE LESS, I WILL CONTINUE TO TRY.

WELL, TOMORROW WE HEAD TO THE TRANSMISSION YARD TO DO SOME HEAVIER LIFTING WITH THE HOT STICKS AND CHANGING OUT SOME BROKEN BELLS WITH HOISTS AND BLOCKS, AND AGAIN~WE WON'T EVER TOUCH THE WIRE WITH OUR HANDS.

ANYWHO,

GOTTS TO GET BACK TO THE GROUP.

HOPE ALLS WELL~

HURTMAN DAN

HOT STICK TRAINING AT SCHOOL

HEY EVERYONE,




SORRY I HAVEN'T WROTE MUCH LATELY, WE WORKED LATE EVERY NIGHT LAST WEEK AND HAD SEVERAL PROBLEMS WITH THE CAT SO IT WAS AN INTERESTING WEEK. THE COMPANY I WORK FOR PUT OUT AN ANNOUNCEMENT STATING THAT THE ILLINOIS COMMERCE COMMISSION DIDN'T APPROVE THERE 150 MILLION RATE INCREASE, SO THEY WILL BE LAYING OFF ALL OUR CONTRACTORS AND THEN CUTTING BACK CERTAIN JOBS/PROJECTS. NOT A GOOD DEAL, MANY OF MY FRIENDS HAVE BEEN AFFECTED BY THIS.

BUT ON TO THE CURRENT JOB/TASK... I WILL BE AWAY AT SCHOOL FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS DOING SOME HOT STICKING OFF THE POLE. WE ARE CHANGING OUT ARMS HOT, TIE'N IN CONDUCTORS WITH HOT STICKS, AND DOING SOME TRANSMISSION WORK. I'LL POST SOME PICS LATER K.

SORRY SO SHORT, BUT I'M PRETTY TIRED.

BE SAFE,

HURTMAN DAN

If it ain't broke....it will be:)

So sorry for the late blog guys,

The last couple of days we've been doing some work with the Cat/dozer because of the location of the pole.....it's down a steep hill, thru a creek, behind a guard rail.......you know, the perfect place for a pole right;) Well, usually a pole like this would be sent straight to the contractors but seeing as the power company that I work for isn't about to give away there work ~ we tackled the job......after many many break downs! For starters, we got the cat stuck yesterday, had to get a high hoe down this hill to even try and move her and just when we got the cat to start moving.......pop, broke a hydraulic line and was down and out until the next day. So two hours late last night but still in good spirits, brings us to the present day and well it's another late one!

We started off having to travel around to get some fluid for the cat, then headed to Bismark to tackel this darn pole in the middle of the woods down a fricken hill! When we get there and get everything back in place.....we blow the darn motor on the auger! Out of luck right, wait till tomorrow and order one is probably what your thinking but nope ~ We ended up taking the Auger motor off of the line truck and swapping it with the bad one to finish this pole. We had to cut a few switches in the other day so we could cut the power while transfering the phases. Ameren has a no gloving 12 kv off the pole policy. Now we can hot stick the phases but that's a lot of work and it's a practice that's becoming less and less used these days. I climbed the 60 foot pole, and un-tied the two phases and dropped the neutral down off the arm and cut a few feet off the old pole so we could just push the old rotten pole over with the boom. Im sorry that I could take any photos, I'll try and bring the camera tomorrow cause we're still using the cat to get to one more right of way pole back in the woods down an old hunting path.

Well, I still have a letter that I have to write for the military this weekend so I should get to it. But again, sorry for the short and late blog. One thing is for sure, lineman don't work the standard 8 to 5 job everyday. Your released when the job is done, not almost complete!

Have a great rest of the night, and I'll hopefully write more tomorrow k.

all the best,

dan

WCLR Rodeo finished, International Linemans Rodeo next on my list!!

Hey Everyone,

So this weekend went better than I had expected. Jen and I drove down to Hillsboro on Friday and before I left for The Rodeo, I went and did a little mushroom hunting. I found about 5 pounds of morels, or yellows as we always called them when I was going up. I brought them down with me and gave them to some of the veteran rodeo guys from 702.

Okay, so I didn't sleep worth a shit on Friday night ~ probably b/c I kept thinking about how much it's going to hurt when I fall in front of everyone.....and trying to climb any pole going on 40 some hours without any sleep makes for a crappy situation. But Jen and I left Hillsboro around 4:45am and got to Duquion Illinois about 6:40am and I tried to sleep a little in the parking lot but I swear, linemen are some of the loudest son's of bitches alive!!! So, I just got up from the back seat and Jen and I went inside and I'm pretty sure the poles grew alittle over night;) But after the flag ceremony, all the apprentices went towards there divisions and waited....then waited.....and waited some more. It took a long time for things to start running smoothly but when they picked up, they really picked up. My first event was the H-Structure Cross over, I was actually the first person to do that event in the whole rodeo. A little nervous, but I flew up the right side of the h-structure in less than 30 seconds, only my problem was that I've never used two safety's before and I had to put one around the pole and then one around the static wire when I headed to the other side. There was three things that I should have done to get a quicker time, number one ~ not listened to the fat judge who told me that you couldn't cross your safety, number two ~ climbed up the back side of the pole, and number three ~ brought my own separate safety to use cause the one they had was a piece of crap!!! But still I finished in 2:20 I think which was okay as an apprentice.....especially the first person to do the event!

My second event was the speed climb, I was using my new gaffs and I really like them but I'm going to have to learn to descend smoother and faster in them. It will come with some time and practice, which I plan on doing both a lot more of! In the speed climb you have to descend down the pole with an egg in your mouth and the goal is to not crack or break the egg and have the best time. I had 41 seconds, but the dam egg cracked. I wasn't really happy anyways, 41 seconds just won't cut it! I will try my hardest to cut that in two for my next rodeo.

Um, the next event I did was the mystery event ~ we just had to climb up and change out three dead service connectors ~ aka one bolts. I actually dropped one on the way up.....another dam penalty.... I think I finished that one in 3 minutes but wasn't really sure seeing as I was a little disappointed in myself.

And I saved my favorite for last, The hurtman! I think the winning time was 57 seconds and mine wasn't my best but I did it safely in 1:54 seconds. I had an extra 20 seconds put on my time because my gear wasn't working very well with me. I need to practice putting all my new gear on, and on, and on again until it only takes me 14-17 seconds to put my gear on, and not 47 seconds..... Im not happy with the way I preformed and going to this rodeo has only made me want to do another rodeo and score better. I think I still probably finished in the top 20 but I'm not pleased with my performance. I have a video of my hurtman, and I think I'll post it, even tho I'm a little embarrassed to show it. Maybe this will motivate me more knowing that someone might be watching it.

As for today, my crew was short handed and we framed up a 60 foot pole that we will be using the cat for tomorrow. It's down the side of the highway, behind some guard-rails. I can pretty much put my hand thru this old girl. It's pretty scary thinking about all the old poles out there. We're changing them little by little and making hardly no head way on this job. I can say that we'll be busy for EVER... We also went and took a look at another pole that's in need of changing back in the middle of the woods. A walk beside machine would work okay on this job, but since we have the cat, we might as well use her all we can.

WEll, I think that's about it for today ~ we stayed a little late tonight till 6 so I'm beat. I'll try and remember my camera tomorrow.

L8ter,
dan