-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Snow on Mount Wilson Today
- Thread starter davideduardo
- Start date
Fantastic photo, did you take it?
That's a nice one at Mt. Wilson. Interesting that it would have been a great Christmas photo though but this shot is taking place as we are approaching spring.
Scott Fybush ought to license this for next year's tower calendar!
No, it was circulated by one of the engineers who visits his site up there. I have not been up for about a decade.
The Cayenne can't make the climb?
No, the "old man" can't!
I spent too many years driving my Land Rover up and down to and from mountaintop transmitter sites (generally with no guard rails and over 10,000 feet AMSL) to want to do that any more!!!!
It is from David Cendejas, the site supervisor for Mt. Wilson Observatory.
This is why I never visit my friends in Malibu. Driving in California, let alone Los Angeles, is scarier than people realize
Driving around Malibu is not at all like driving in the mountains
Mount Wilson is an easy drive when there’s no snow. It’s a paved road all the way to the towers.
Try it in the dark, when it is very windy, or when it is raining. Or when there is black ice. Or when a wide vehicle (or a narrow one with a scared driver) is coming at you in the middle of the road.
Indeed, that road is much more dangerous than many think.
Driving up the Angeles Crest Highway to Mt. Wilson in the mid-1980s, we saw a car going the opposite direction take a curve way too fast -- then it flipped over and skidded down the road right next to us. We and some other passers-by got out to help the injured people inside.
If our car had been maybe 80 feet further up the road, that vehicle might have smashed into us head-on... and I might not be alive to tell this tale.
Exactly what I thought about as I encountered "weekend drivers" frequently on that road. You just knew that they were either totally scared or just unaware of the hazards.
The scared ones drove at about 15 miles an hour, forcing many to take undue risks in passing. The unaware drivers went too fast, ignored how slick a mountain road is in or after the rain, tailgated safer drivers, hugged the middle of the road and lots of other "weekend warrior" behaviour.
When I was working for KFAC one stormy day the main FM transmitter went off the air and the ancient 3 Kw RCA backup was showing crazy readings. I headed up the hill and found the antenna de-icers had quit and the Jampro V elements were encased in solid blocks of ice. The backup transmitter was chugging along putting out 3 Kw forward while receiving 2.5 Kw reflected power. There was nothing else I could do so I as soon as the sun came up I headed back down. That's when I noticed the tracks my Corvair made on the trip up were the only ones in the fresh snow, including where they passed over a set of downed power lines. That was back when I was young and foolish. I'm no longer young.
My most important FM in Quito was at a site about 5,000 feet above the city below and had many, many fold-backs...
The road was carved out of the mountainside and had some gravel mixed with volcanic soil.
To do maintenance, I had to drive up in the evening with plenty of food and water and warm clothing (it got well below freezing, even at just a few kilometers south of the Equator) and then wait for midnight to work on the transmitter and link.
There were few places for two cars to pass each other, so backing up or backing down could be a problem as the site was shared with the TV station from missionary broadcaster HCJB.
Occasionally, an idiot with his girlfriend would start the drive up "the hill" and discover how frightening it could be. Sometimes the froze, and required assistance to get to a place they could turn around.
Asking "what part of private road don't you understand?" did not seem to generate any remorse. Some brains don't work as well at about 15,000 feet above sea level.
Ah, yes, “La Ventana de los Andes”, the TV sister to The Voice of the Andes. Apparently the first TV station in Ecuador.
Ventana de los Andes – TWRMF
www.twrmf.org
I think the HCJB TV operation is long gone, but don’t recall the details. Replaced by another station on Channel 4 in Quito.
No, second. Presley Norton's station in Guayaquil was first.
- Status