[brant]

I was doing some random searches and readings just now and found some interesting info:

our local CBS station has always had a strong signal. it can be picked up in my house without even connecting to an antenna. i found that it is the tallest man-made structure in Georgia at 2000 feet!

here is a pic from their wikipedia page

WCTV Tower From 400' to 1100' disappearing into the clouds. Manufactured by Kline Iron and Steel stacked in 1987.

Link to page

 

[dettxw]

KVLY tower at 2063ft in North Dakota, and

KXJB tower at 2060ft in North Dakota

are the second and third tallest man-made structures in the world and are just a few miles apart. I used to tune in those stations when I lived in Grand Forks, ND.

 

[jacksonm30354]

The WTVM/WRBL tower sout of Columbus in Cusseta used to be the tallest in GA (1749ft) (and the world for about a year) until sometime in the 80's or 90's. Then WYAY-FM in Gainesvile built a taller tower so it could get better coverage in Atlanta. The new WLGA tower next to the WTVM/WRBL tower in Cusseta is actually bit taller than the older tower. There will be some musical chairs among the digital signals as to which tower they come from in the coming months. WVRK (102.9 ROCK 103 originates from the older tower as well).

 

[ycebar]

KVLY tower at 2063ft in North Dakota, and

KXJB tower at 2060ft in North Dakota

are the second and third tallest man-made structures in the world and are just a few miles apart. I used to tune in those stations when I lived in Grand Forks, ND.

I use both of these towers on a daily basis to recieve my locals in hd

 

[brant]

The WTVM/WRBL tower sout of Columbus in Cusseta used to be the tallest in GA (1749ft) (and the world for about a year) until sometime in the 80's or 90's.

the 2k' tower in that pic was built in 1987, so i guess that's when it was overtaken as the tallest.

 

[Richard King]

If I lived nearby I'd ask them if I could put my antenna up there. I bet it would be great for DX'ing.

 

[brant]

If I lived nearby I'd ask them if I could put my antenna up there. I bet it would be great for DX'ing.

ha! i'm sure that'd be one expensive install, seeing as how you'd have to rent a helicopter to do it.

its 23 miles away from my house though.

nearest TV tower to me is 12 miles and I can't even pick it up. must be extreme LP.

 

[sattec]

If I lived nearby I'd ask them if I could put my antenna up there. I bet it would be great for DX'ing.

hey rich! be sure and put a rotor on that install, your not going up to "adjust it" very often...., our big tower in the area has a small elevator on the outside of the leg.

 

[Scott in FL]

WINK-TV's tower is 1400 feet tall. Short in comparison to the ones mentioned here, but still very tall. when I worked for WINK I used to go up to the top regularly. There is an elevator inside the tower legs operated manually (green up/down buttons, and a red emergency stop). During the summer when it was 95 degrees on the ground it was very pleasant up top (could get pretty cold after a cold front came through, though). The guy wires viewed from the top swept away from the tower gracefully, and planes sometimes flew by lower than we were. I loved riding up past the old RCA channel 11 batwing antenna, and looking up at the 100 kW FM antenna on top. Wasps could be annoying down below, but they never followed us up past about 500 feet. All in all a very cool experience.

 

[Richard King]

I'm going to have to find a picture that I took many years ago. It was a cold Minnesota morning and I arrived at work to see two people starting out their work day climbing a local tower about a block from my office to do work at the top. The temp had to be below zero. The tower was only a few hundred feet tall, but I still wouldn't want to work up there in the cold.

 

[Richard King]

hey rich! be sure and put a rotor on that install, your not going up to "adjust it" very often....,

Then it will have to go right to the top of the tower. Of course, I'm going to use a 10' long boom UHF/VHF antenna.

 

[Lee L]

ha! i'm sure that'd be one expensive install, seeing as how you'd have to rent a helicopter to do it.

Actually, people climb them to do work all the time and some even have elevators inside. There is an antenna owned by the parent company of WRAL here that has a ton of stuff on it and it even has fully enclosed platforms at 3 levels.

 

[brant]

that's interesting. never seen one with an elevator. my dad had a good friend that was a helicopter pilot that flew guys to the top of these things to work on them. a strong wind blew him into a tower one day and it unfortunately killed him. but that's the only way i've seen guys work on them around here.

a military chopper hit our local fox stations tower in 2006. check out this video to see the results. the video is not of the crash, but the demolition of the tower afterwards which also brought down the local 1k' NBC tower that was right next to it. (FYI: ******* alert about 35 seconds in. i cain't help it yall; this is south jawja).

On June 1, 2006, a CH-47 Chinook military chopper traveling from Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia to Fort Rucker in Alabama for a training mission crashed into a guy wire connected to WFXL's 1000 foot tall Doerun tower. As a result, Raycom acquired auxiliary transmitters and antennas for both WFXL and WALB, which were installed at the tower at WALB's studios in Albany until the new tower began broadcasting. [1]
WALB's Television Tower was destroyed at 6:32 PM on Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 during an attempted demolition of WFXL's tower. Shown on live television, the demolition for WFXL's unrepairable tower placed WALB's tower in a delicate position. The initial destruction of WFXL's damaged tower went well until the final seconds when overlapping guy wires from the WFXL tower entangled with the guy wires of WALB's tower. [2] [3]
In early 2007, construction began on a new 1000-foot tower in Doerun, which will hold antennas for WALB and WFXL. The construction was finished in July 2007, and began broadcasting from the new mega-tower on July 3, 2007 at 11:35 P.M.

 

[Satsince1978]

If I lived nearby I'd ask them if I could put my antenna up there. I bet it would be great for DX'ing.

Back in 1961 or 1962 I would go out to one of the local tv stations after sign off and load up the antenna on 6 meters or 2 meters AM modulation. This was done thru a probe on the side of the big coax inside the transmitter building. SWR was very high but we got out working with a Heath Sixer or twoer. Used to regularly work 300 plus miles and and very few would beleive what we were doing! One contact in Green Bay WI who was running a full KW said he did not think I was running only 3/4 of a watt that I had to be running a KW like him!
Jim, K9YCA :hurah:

 

[Richard King]

:lol: My DX'ing would be different. I would just receive television from all over the country. Sort of my own "Distant Network Package".

 

[sattec]

:lol: My DX'ing would be different. I would just receive television from all over the country. Sort of my own "Distant Network Package".

your gonna get in trouble......

 

[Kansas Zephyr]

Back in 1961 or 1962 I would go out to one of the local tv stations after sign off and load up the antenna on 6 meters or 2 meters AM modulation. This was done thru a probe on the side of the big coax inside the transmitter building. SWR was very high but we got out working with a Heath Sixer or twoer. Used to regularly work 300 plus miles and and very few would beleive what we were doing! One contact in Green Bay WI who was running a full KW said he did not think I was running only 3/4 of a watt that I had to be running a KW like him!
Jim, K9YCA :hurah:

Ever think about trying 160m using the stick itself as a Marconi, and connecting the shield to ground?

 

[Scott in FL]

Ever think about trying 160m using the stick itself as a Marconi, and connecting the shield to ground?

It's been done. Back in the 70's I was working for a chain of AM/FM radio stations in Tucson and Phoenix and some of the other Chief Engineer hams used to load up their daytime AM towers in the evening after sign off on 80 and 160 meters. This was very popular for field day. I was more into the higher bands (10 meters), but they reported great results!
K7KQ