The most important ten minutes of any climb happen on the ground. A pre-climb inspection is how a crew reads the tower before trusting their lives to it.
The walkdown
Start at the base and go slow: foundation condition, anchor bolts, grounding leads. Then up with binoculars — corrosion at member joints, loose or missing hardware, the state of the climbing facility, anything hanging that shouldn’t be. Wildlife counts too: wasp nests and bird nests have ended more climbs than storms.
The paper
The tower tells half the story; documents tell the rest. Structural notes and past modification history, the RFDS for what’s actually up there versus what’s supposed to be, and RF power-down confirmation — EME exposure is invisible and non-negotiable. Lockout applies to radios as much as to electrical panels.
The talk
The tailgate brief closes the loop: who climbs, who tends, rescue roles, hand signals when radios fail, and the weather threshold that ends the day. Everyone says it out loud. A crew that has spoken the plan is a crew that can execute it under stress.