Posted by Dave Speed on Saturday, August 30, 2003 at 9:41AM :
In Reply to: Re: cliff thats an A-Frame lift posted by Jerry Henry on Saturday, August 30, 2003 at 1:25AM :
The more common use of the term gin pole is to describe a lifting device that is temporarily attached to a tower structure under construction to lift the next section into place.
Look about 1/3 of the way down on the referenced document for a decent drawing.
That said, current usage of the term is moving towards using it to describe most any lifting device, from a persual of the results of a google image search.
But to an old lineman, for example, a gin pole and an a frame are two very different things.