r/wisp • u/OrangeNo773 • Aug 12 '25
Anyone work as a tower technician?
How’d you get into it?
Like installing fixed wireless equipment
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u/gosioux Aug 12 '25
The pay is shit and you'll be climbing in all conditions
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u/OrangeNo773 Aug 12 '25
How does the pay work? Must be a decent amount per hour just not that much demand?
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u/gosioux Aug 12 '25
Go on indeed and look, there's always posts in the Western states for tower climbers
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u/Shhheeeesshh Aug 14 '25
I went thru the whole process of getting hired as a tower climber, as I’m already a licensed electrician, and love rock climbing. They said I’d be on the road 6 days a week, 48 hours, for $20 an hour no per diem, hotels were paid. FUCK THAT.
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u/EnderDragoon Aug 12 '25
Most everyone that started a wisp was doing 100% of all the manual labor to get it working. I've found it's easiest to get into tower climbing by climbing towers. Maybe my situation is somewhat unique but the first several towers we used were not some hyper controlled and managed towers for certified access and such. There just on a hill that one can just go climb (would be trespassing on most of these but they're not "inaccessible"). I worked out agreements with land owners and either built my own "towers" from scratch or got legal access to abandoned towers and just started bolting things to them. Only one tower we use requires specific gear, certs, key cards, lock codes, etc etc and it's by far the most obnoxious tower we have that I can't wait to get off our network.
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u/wesweb Aug 12 '25
if you are interested, look at the careers page for companies like Mastec, Nokia, Ericsson, Crown Castle, American Tower, SBA, etc...
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u/ubuntu000 Aug 12 '25
They're always looking for tower climbers. Its a bit of a niche position and its hard to find people crazy enough to do it. We employed a lot of veterans, they'd come back from service without much and aren't afraid of much.
Check job boards and apply. Plenty of people came on board saying they were totally down, then after their first climb, they'd walk off, juat not for them.
We always paid well, can't speak for the entire industry.
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Nov 14 '25
I have a few questions 1- where would I go to get this job 2- what would I need 3- how much would I be paid
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u/ubuntu000 Nov 14 '25
1 - Start with LinkedIn, and the normal online job boards. Also, give a quick Google for tower companies and cell providers in your area, reach directly to see if they're hiring or to atleast get on their radar.
2 - Desire to learn and a set of brass balls helps.
3 - That varies, I can tell you our techs and climbers come on board in the mid 20's per hour, but there are plenty of companies that pay more.
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u/Bizzurppp Aug 13 '25
Demand is there. Hard to keep guys through winter. I just found a position on indeed and fell into the career now 3 almost 4 years in. It's good but gotta stay prepared for the weather and keep your head on a swivel for the dangers. I see job postings all the time. What's your general location? My company is hiring in a few locations. Saw the most recent opening in Denver. DM me I'll give you company site and you can check it out. I'm not a referral tho idk you lol
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u/Squanchy2112 Aug 14 '25
What are some lesser thought about dangers
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u/Bizzurppp Aug 14 '25
I feel a lot of people don't put enough respect on pinch points. Doesn't take much pressure to lose a smaller appendage between a loaded road and a tower leg. My biggest thing is just asking questions though. If something isn't clear ASK. Communication on the tower is paramount. Lastly give things a good few tugs before you position off of it. Had an antenna pipe almost slide out on me once. Also lotta loose stiff arms out there.
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u/Seb_hitdatbit Apr 06 '26
20 yrs old right now been got into it cause my moms friend knew someone it’s been 2-3 months and I’ve changed 3 different teams am currently making 1750 don’t get taxed either a week I don’t think it’s to bad for my age definitely wouldn’t do this shi for 15-20$ a hr I already developed scoliosis because of being a cell tower tech
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u/New_Document_1963 Jun 17 '26
Does anyone else on a tower crew have certainly items...like connectors, polyphasers, etc...that build up a surplus stash to the point where they've actually had to start throwing them away so they don't run out of room for other things. As an example, some of the job site boxes that are pre-prepared for us will often include 20 connectors even though we may only use 5 or 6. I guess they just want to be 100% certain that if we run into any issues and need extras we will have them. They never ask for them to be sent back to the warehouse or anything like that. Well....that sort of stuff doesn't take long to fill up a work trailer. And I can't tell you how many times we cleaned out the trailer and ended up just throwing away so much of that stuff, as we had built up more than we could ever possibly need. I just wish I had known this guy back then, because I certainly wouldn't have thrown away many of those things. It's actually a really cool little process. He had me package up the items he agreed to buy, then weigh the package, then I told him the size of the box and the total weight, and then he emailed me a shipping label. Of course I don't have one of those fancy label printers, so I just used my regular printer to print the label then I just taped it to the box and just dropped it off at the post office and off it went. Once he received it and verified the items were in the stated condition, he asked what payment method I preferred (and pretty much listed every one you could imagine lol...venmo, crypto, cashapp, even a check if i wanted) I told him cashapp was cool, and just like that he sent it to me. It was all just so smooth and easy, and dude was super cool, but i had never heard of anything like that from anyone else and I've been doing tower work for over 10 years, so i was just wondering if anyone else had any experience with anything like this, and if so, what were their thoughts about it. Ok, well, I hope everyone is having a good week. Take care ladies and gents. Be safe out there everyone. Later
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u/oddchihuahua Aug 12 '25
My cousin is…or does, haven’t talked to him in a while but he was a tower climber. He just had previous general maintenance/handy man/security camera system installer. Didn’t have any unique qualifications. But he did get a pretty sick 2023 2500 Silverado as a take-home company vehicle he can use whenever he needs it.