Swapped a weather-beaten jumper at 320’ outside Amarillo yesterday, and it drove home how tight our rescue clock and RF hazard calls need to be. Who’s taken a continuing-ed course that truly hammers aerial rescue (sub-10 minutes from call to ground) and advanced RF safety in the air — SPRAT L2, NWSA TTT2 refreshers, or an Anritsu-based PIM hunting clinic — or is there a better, hands-on option you’d vouch for?
And had to haul a guy from 300’ last winter; we got him down in 8:32 by pre-rigging a lowering line and mirrored kits before the first wrench left the bag, plus a stopwatch drill every Friday. “sub-10 minutes” happens with reps, but the best formal mix for us was NWSA TTT2 refresher for scenario speed + Gravitec’s advanced tower rescue — SPRAT L2 alone didn’t hit RF enough. For RF at 320’, we run FieldSENSE/Narda checks and a strict sector LOTO call sheet; Anritsu PIM clinic is great if you’re chasing rooftop/DAS, but on weather-beaten jumpers like Amarillo it’s secondary to coordination and tagging.
At 320’, SPRAT L2 + edge manager kept us “sub-10”; add RF monitors, not just Anritsu.
If the ‘rescue clock’ is the driver, Safety One’s Advanced Climber/Rescuer with RF Awareness beat SPRAT/NWSA refreshers for us. We cut 320’ evolutions to about 8 by pre-rigging a twin-line with an I’D L + ASAP backup and running a 6-minute package drill before RF is hot, with FieldSENSE on the harness and a ground RF spotter — thanks @danielsmith44 for the timing idea. Caveat: they don’t go deep on PIM; keep the Anritsu clinic for that.
Gravitec’s Tower Rescue Pro with RF Exposure was the one that moved the needle for us at 320’; we shaved “call-to-ground” by giving one climber the sole job of timing and running a simple “no talk, just tasks” script, while the pickoff rescuer wore a RadMan 2XT so the RF spotter wasn’t guessing. @h_gordon88 I like your timer point — SPRAT/NWSA refreshers kept skills sharp, but they didn’t nail the RF-in-air workflow.