A tower worker on Sutro posted a bunch of photos on reddit today, not just some great views but some interesting behind the scenes of the maintanenace / repainting going on.
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Sutro Eye Candy
- Thread starter rustyhodge
- Start date
There are some Sutro inspection reports on the Sutro Tower official site, from 2020, that point out lots of rust issues.
Is any of it from the saltwater of the Bay being carried inland in the air?
Um...probably all of it - it's only ~3 miles from the coastline...
No doubt.
An anecdote from my time in Oakland: we had to paint the northwest and southwest walls of our house in the Oakland hills every 2 or 3 years due to the effects of the near-constant sea breeze, even though we were 5 or 6 miles from the bay. So it wouldn’t surprise me that Sutro Tower, and others, would need frequent maintenance due to the climatic effects from the Pacific.
That is why the Golden Gate Bridge Authority never stops painting the iconic bridge. They get done at one end, then begin again from the other. I imagine there are employees whose entire working career has been spend putting another coat of Golden Gate Orange on the girders, from trainee to retirement.
In case anyone is interested, here's a link for Sutro Tower Safety Inspections
cool
When I worked up at Sutro we were able to go to the top of the tower, if you had time, you could easily do it. Didn't happen often but I did it, the view was fantastic and looking down at the parking lot below thru the open catwalk was "unique"!
I loved high places so, it was "cool", to me!!!
We were told not to stay up there long, (RF levels), which we always followed, it was a quick visit. You had to get permission to do it from the Sutro office (on- site).
Taking the elevator from the bottom you went up at an angle in one of the three tower legs, the suddenly the elevator made a "kind of" quick angle movement as the tower leg angle changed . . . it was fun. It took awhile to get to top.
But this all stopped when OSHA put in new rules, after that only tower workers were allowed on the tower.
In the analog days the three stacks had Channel 26 on the NE stack, but 26 never moved from San Bruno Mountain to Sutro so the antenna was not in use, Channel 32 (that we (KQED) owned for a while) was next up and then our (Channel 9) antenna was on top of 32.
The SE stack had a blank spot, then Channel 44, then on top of that Channel 7.
The west (W) stack had Channel 2 on the bottom and Channel 4 & 5 (shared) on top, the 2, 4 & 5 VHF antennas were all batwing antennas.
The high VHF's and U's were, I think slot type, I may have that name wrong.
There were backup antennas for all TV's at the lowest level just above the parking lot.
At the time Sutro never had deicers installed (don't know about today) the feeling when tower was built was, they weren't need . . . but that was found to NOT BE TRUE . . . on occasions (very rarely) it got cold enough when it was raining, and the top TV antennas did ice up . . . and the stations would have to sign on with their back up (aux) antennas until the sun came out!!!
This issue only happened at sign on, when ice would build up enough when stations were off the air overnight, again it happened very rarely.
If it was in the morning cold and rainy MCR (Master Control) operators were told if xmtr didn't come up to switch to aux antenna, then xmtr came up . . . for an hour or so they operated on aux antenna and than, back to main antenna, that worked perfect everytime.
The high VSWR would knock the transmitter off with ice on the antenna.
FM's were below the top of the tower platform that the TV's were on, FM's hung down from this area.
Channel 20 & 38 from San Bruno Mountain moved to Sutro (I think in the early 90's) and rooms were added to the building to accommodate them. Thier analog antennas hung down, like the FMs (at top).
Often when tower was being worked on at top all TV's had to switch to aux antennas at very bottom level.
I recall (back in the day) - FM's on Sutro were, KOIT 96.5, KSFX 103.7, KFOG 104.5 I think there was one other, but I forget now.
When digital came on the scene (around 2000) the digital antenna was one master (all UHF) that hung down from the top area, near FM's. I left about 8 years after digital came on, so I have no idea how they did the new digital antennas after analog disappeared.
I do know all the analog antennas were removed and replaced by the digital channel antennas, but how I do not know.
The two people that worked fulltime on the tower at the time (80's, 90's and early 2000's) were great and so knowledgeable on that tower.
If you know of needed corrections to my story, feel free to correct, via a comment. It was a long time ago.
I loved high places so, it was "cool", to me!!!
We were told not to stay up there long, (RF levels), which we always followed, it was a quick visit. You had to get permission to do it from the Sutro office (on- site).
Taking the elevator from the bottom you went up at an angle in one of the three tower legs, the suddenly the elevator made a "kind of" quick angle movement as the tower leg angle changed . . . it was fun. It took awhile to get to top.
But this all stopped when OSHA put in new rules, after that only tower workers were allowed on the tower.
In the analog days the three stacks had Channel 26 on the NE stack, but 26 never moved from San Bruno Mountain to Sutro so the antenna was not in use, Channel 32 (that we (KQED) owned for a while) was next up and then our (Channel 9) antenna was on top of 32.
The SE stack had a blank spot, then Channel 44, then on top of that Channel 7.
The west (W) stack had Channel 2 on the bottom and Channel 4 & 5 (shared) on top, the 2, 4 & 5 VHF antennas were all batwing antennas.
The high VHF's and U's were, I think slot type, I may have that name wrong.
There were backup antennas for all TV's at the lowest level just above the parking lot.
At the time Sutro never had deicers installed (don't know about today) the feeling when tower was built was, they weren't need . . . but that was found to NOT BE TRUE . . . on occasions (very rarely) it got cold enough when it was raining, and the top TV antennas did ice up . . . and the stations would have to sign on with their back up (aux) antennas until the sun came out!!!
This issue only happened at sign on, when ice would build up enough when stations were off the air overnight, again it happened very rarely.
If it was in the morning cold and rainy MCR (Master Control) operators were told if xmtr didn't come up to switch to aux antenna, then xmtr came up . . . for an hour or so they operated on aux antenna and than, back to main antenna, that worked perfect everytime.
The high VSWR would knock the transmitter off with ice on the antenna.
FM's were below the top of the tower platform that the TV's were on, FM's hung down from this area.
Channel 20 & 38 from San Bruno Mountain moved to Sutro (I think in the early 90's) and rooms were added to the building to accommodate them. Thier analog antennas hung down, like the FMs (at top).
Often when tower was being worked on at top all TV's had to switch to aux antennas at very bottom level.
I recall (back in the day) - FM's on Sutro were, KOIT 96.5, KSFX 103.7, KFOG 104.5 I think there was one other, but I forget now.
When digital came on the scene (around 2000) the digital antenna was one master (all UHF) that hung down from the top area, near FM's. I left about 8 years after digital came on, so I have no idea how they did the new digital antennas after analog disappeared.
I do know all the analog antennas were removed and replaced by the digital channel antennas, but how I do not know.
The two people that worked fulltime on the tower at the time (80's, 90's and early 2000's) were great and so knowledgeable on that tower.
If you know of needed corrections to my story, feel free to correct, via a comment. It was a long time ago.
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Very cool details! As for that "one other" FM on Sutro, it's 98.9. And 103.7 moved off Sutro a few years back, to San Bruno Mountain. So, there are now just three FM's on that tower. All but 96.5 run about 5kw-8kw, which makes their signals weaker down in San Jose. As a result, 98.9 simulcasts with 99.1 in the South Bay. And 104.5, when it was KFOG, was simulcast in the South Bay on 97.7.
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