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Empire State Building - climbers

Those two climbers had to know those antennas were not active, at least the batwing. If you watch one video the girl (I think it was the girl) just casually grabs one of the batwing antenna elements, as up she goes.

As Scott Fybush (in #7 above) mentioned, that was Channel 4 & 5's antenna. Channel 4 (by itself) was the first TV antenna up on that building going way back, gradually the other NYC channels went up there until the WTC tower site was completed, then they all moved to the WTC. Channel 2 was the only station that for some reason kept their old antenna & transmitter up in the Empire state Building. Following 9/11 they were back on the air from that old site, the transmitter engineer who knew that old transmitter well, came in out of retirement to help.

I think I got this next comment correct, if not please add corrections.
Some of you might recall, the NYC TV Guide had translators (for all the NYC TV stations), listed in it, when the WTC reached a certain height and after it was completed it was causing bad signal problems in The Bronx. So, each channel got a translator, that were all located in The Bronx.
 
The UHF translators were all at Empire, using directional antennas that aimed north *at* the Bronx and upper Manhattan where the multipath problems were worst.
 
OK Scott, did not know the translators were located on the ESB, Thanks!!!

I recall as a kid we moved, and the house we moved into had a "line of sight" view of the ESB, we were in East Orange, NJ (about 15 miles west of ESB), in the 60's at the time. The house we came from did not see the ESB . . . anyway our trusty Admiral TV got overloaded because I picked THE BIGGEST TV ANTENNA I COULD FINE, from Lafayette Radio, my Dad gave me the money and said - go buy it.
I wanted to DX too.

I put it up, it was BEAUTIFUL!!!!

I turned on the TV and it was getting overloaded, didn't do that in the house we came from with the smaller antenna!!! I had to install an attenuator to reduce the signals of the local channels . . . when DXing I took it out.

I HAD FUN !!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Last edited:
Weiserguy said:
With all due respect to Lance, Radio Online published an article which answered that question:


(tl;dr answer: yes, for about an hour.)
Click to expand...

With all due respect, Radio World is a different publication, aimed at the engineering community, and is also a print magazine. It is not the online news site which competes (unfairly, IMHO) with Lance.
 
Actually they were lucky they didn't get the"King Kong" treatment.

Seriously they should have never had their names or arrest on TV or posted on the Internet. They got "famous" for a stupid stunt. Sooner or later someone will die trying this. Of course maybe the part of Darwin's theory about the "not smart" of the species dying off might be correct.
 
secondchoice said:
Actually they were lucky they didn't get the"King Kong" treatment.

Seriously they should have never had their names or arrest on TV or posted on the Internet. They got "famous" for a stupid stunt. Sooner or later someone will die trying this. Of course maybe the part of Darwin's theory about the "not smart" of the species dying off might be correct.
Click to expand...

I have suggested, through channels, that (1) the stations that had to switch to their aux sites collectively sue the pair for damages, especially if any damage to the antenna array occurred as a result of their little stunt; (2) Netflix remove their documentary from their library and/or divert any royalties to the owners of the ESB; and (3) they get a little jail time when they unquestionably are found guilty for trespassing, etc.

If Darwin had been correct this time, they wouldn't have gotten back down successfully.
 


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