had a pretty interesting experience last week doing an inspection on a 200ft monopole for a telecom subcontractor. the actual tower climbers on site were kind of hostile at first, which i get, theres been a lot of talk in that industry about drones taking work. but then the site supervisor pulled me aside and said they still needed the climbers to do the physical maintenance, they just wanted the drone pre-inspection so they knew exactly what they were getting into before anyone went up.

ended up being a weirdly collaborative thing. one of the climbers was actually giving me directions on where to look and what anomalies mattered ? corrosion at certain mount points, a loose waveguide clamp, junction box that looked like it had water ingress. stuff i wouldnt have known to look for on my own.

the technical side was interesting too. flying close to that much steel and all the RF equipment made my Autel EVO II act a little twitchy at certain altitudes, had to switch to manual for a few of the close inspection passes. anyone else notice compass or positioning weirdness near active cell infrastructure? wondering if its the RF or just the mass of metal throwing off the magnetometer.

yeah the magnetometer interference near towers is a known thing, its mostly the ferrous metal messing with compass calibration more than the RF honestly. active equipment can introduce noise too but the physical mass is usually the bigger culprit. i always do a fresh compass cal well away from the structure before i fly anything like that and then switch to atti mode or full manual once im close in. GPS hold near a tower that size is basically unreliable anyway, you dont want the drone trying to fight phantom drift corrections when youre 3 feet from a waveguide run.

also that dynamic you described with the climbers is exactly how it should work. drones for the eyes, climbers for the hands. the companies that frame it that way seem to have way less friction on site.

this is the kind of post i come here for. the RF interference question is something i've wondered about too ? never done a cell tower but i did an inspection on a broadcast antenna farm once and it was genuienly sketchy. kept getting weird yaw drift that i couldnt explain and the video feed was dropping in and out. ended up just doing wider orbit passes and zooming in rather then getting close. probably left some detail on the table but didnt feel like binning the drone trying to be a hero about it