I've worked on broadcast transmitter masts. I recall on FM masts RF burns were commonplace (things were a little different on TV towers). To minimize RF burns,

I've worked on broadcast transmitter masts. I recall on FM masts RF burns were commonplace (things were a little different on TV towers). To minimize RF burns, the idea was to grab metal surfaces quickly so as to not get an RF burn (doing this avoided RF arcing onto one's skin). One of the notable problems was when one's body could not come into direct contact with the metal mast. For example, one's on the mast/tower and working on something and one's legs are wrapped around the center pole of the antenna. In this situation one's legs are actually separated from the pole's metal surface by the thickness of the material in one's pants. I recall ruining perfectly good pairs of jeans and overalls when the RF burned holes in them around the point of my knees (my knees being the closest point to the metal pole). It was annoying for me to have to keep shifting about to minimize the RF arcing onto my knees (I say 'minimize' because I couldn't stop it completely). After alighting down from the tower and inspecting my jeans it was not unusual to find about a half dozen blackened holes of a few mm (1/8") in diameter on the inside of both legs at knee height. Right, RF arcs through my pants did cause RF burns but for some reason they didn't hurt as much as I'd have expected. They were just a bit of a nuisance really. BTW, when the arcing was happening I could smell whiffs of myself burning. At the time I considered this no big deal and I still don't. If one has to work on 'live' towers that are radiating VHF broadcast signals then one has to take these minor hazards/annoyances as part of the job. ___ Edit: I accidentally wore my good Seiko watch with an LCD on the tower one day and its display was ruined (the screen went completely black). Lesson: no electronic watches on 'live' towers. Wind-up mechanical ones are OK. Also, do not attempt to use electronic multimeters on 'live' towers either (destroying a perfectly good Fluke won't get you any Brownie points). If you must use a multimeter on a 'live' tower, an AVO-8 is OK as long as the field strength isn't too high (figuring that out can be a problem which I won't address here, except to say that the field strength (power absorbed in the meter's components, i.e.: I^2R losses), should not exceed their limit). The reason you can use an AVO-8 is that it uses a copper oxide rectifier which has an f(t) of around 20kHz. Note: there is no other multimeter that I know of with a copper oxide rectifier - all others use germanium diodes and the RF will blow them sky-high.