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Free-Standing Radio Towers in Georgia?

W

Witchlover

In another topic, antenna considerations have become part of the discussion -- specifically the amount of land required to support tower guy wires and their anchors. This has set me to thinking about free-standing towers which require no guy wires, counter poises and similar means of support.

What is the maximum height a free-standing tower may attain? Is there a point where the land occupied by the base piers would require more acreage than a guyed tower of equivalent height? What other considerations would turn the decision to a guyed system rather than a free-standing tower? I assume the free-standing towers would be erected at greater cost, due to the requirements of construction: Would the cost of tower maintenance be similar, or would one tower be less expensive to maintain than the other?

The WGAU tower in Athens is one of the only free-standing towers I know of in Georgia. It is something of an historical treasure because the only other tower like it anywhere in the world was destroyed by Allied bombers in World War II. How many other free standing towers remain in service in the state? Am I incorrect that the old WTOC tower in Savannah is one of them? The building was built around the base of the tower. When Channel 11 relocated, there was an article in the Savannah papers about the tower, how it was built, and what goes into having to maintain such an installation.
 
I have a 374' tower on Oatland Island that holds the WTYB atenna and one of the towers we took down on Oatland Island was a 400' self supporter. I believe the largest self supporting tower is the Eiffel Tower, but I am not positive of that.
 
Actually, according to Google, the tallest self supported tower in the world is the CN tower in Cananda. It is 1815 feet, 5 inches tall and holds some antennae for several telecommunications companies.
 
I didn't think about the original WSAV towers on Oatland Island.

As to the Eiffel Tower, believe it or not, there is a lot of conflicting opinion on its height. You'd think that someone would have thought to measure it after all this time ;D According to Google, Le Tour Eiffel stands 324 meters to the top of its antenna -- about 1,063 feet. Many people do not like to count the height of the antenna, however. To them, the tower is 300 meters tall -- about 986 feet.

The CN Tower I knew about, but I did not realize it was considered a self-supported tower. Well . . . I did come here to learn.
 
aren't you guys forgetting about the HUGE self supporter in downtown Atlanta for Channel 17? I think it is at least 1000 ft tall....near "The Varsity" drive in on the east side of I-85....I don't know if it is still on the tower but there used to be an FM antenna on it as well.....I know the tower is still there (at least it was a couple of months ago when I was in Atlanta)

cw
 
Assuming that WPCH-TV Channel 17 has their antenna at the top of the tower, then the tower is 308 meters (1010 feet) tall according the the FCC record for the analog main facility.
 
Savannah has several self supporters. As Rcombs pointed out the 103.9 stick on Oatland Island, formerly part of a 3 tower array for WBMQ/WKBX/WSAV radio.

WSAV-TV still has their old tower up by their Victory Dr. studios, as is the old WTOC tower by their former Abercorn St. Studios.

Let's not forget the numerous self supporting cell towers all over the state, including a large one off Riverview Dr. on the Eastside, home of a still unknown 4 bay FM transmitter.

G
 
[
Let's not forget the numerous self supporting cell towers all over the state, including a large one off Riverview Dr. on the Eastside, home of a still unknown 4 bay FM transmitter.

G
[/quote]


i know there is a LPFM transmitter cabinet at the base of that tower. Actually helped work on it once about 5 years ago, but I can not remember which station it is for.
 
I knew there were quite a few, have seen many since my youthful interest in radio was piqued. But I also figured that with all of the sales, swaps and facilities changes happening as often as they seem to, some of them would have been dismantled and replaced by guyed antennae. If I could hand you a blank check, engineers, which would you prefer from a practical standpoint?
 
rcombs said:
[
Let's not forget the numerous self supporting cell towers all over the state, including a large one off Riverview Dr. on the Eastside, home of a still unknown 4 bay FM transmitter.

G
Click to expand...


i know there is a LPFM transmitter cabinet at the base of that tower. Actually helped work on it once about 5 years ago, but I can not remember which station it is for.
[/quote]

Could it be the home of the Hispanic station on 94.7?

G
 
upstate29651 said:
rcombs said:
Let's not forget the numerous self supporting cell towers all over the state, including a large one off Riverview Dr. on the Eastside, home of a still unknown 4 bay FM transmitter.
Click to expand...
i know there is a LPFM transmitter cabinet at the base of that tower. Actually helped work on it once about 5 years ago, but I can not remember which station it is for.
Click to expand...

Could it be the home of the Hispanic station on 94.7?
Click to expand...

What city are we talking about?​
 
The Ch. 17 tower is 1090 feet tall. At one time, it was the 3rd tallest self-supporting tower in the world. It's coming down this fall after the DTV transition is done.

WNEX-AM in Macon has a self-supporting tower that is 500' or so. I haven' been to Macon in years, but I assume it's still there. There was an old Ch. 47 antenna top-mounted on it from a 50's-era UHF station that didn't make it.

LF
 
"Could it be the home of the Hispanic station on 94.7?"

The Hispanic station in Savannah at 94.7 is not a licensed radio station and no, that is not their antenna off of Riverview Dr. We have narrowed down the area where their antenna is located and we will find it.
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Could it be the home of the Hispanic station on 94.7?
Click to expand...

It must be really low power. I have never been able to pick it up anywhere I have been in Savannah. I'm hoping that, when it is shut down, there is some news coverage, just so I can get some idea of what some of you are hearing that I am not.
 
WGAU is not the only AM radio station in Georgia using a self supporter. Down in South Georgia, both WPAX in Thomasville and WGPC in Albany have self supporters. WPAX is around 230 ft and WGPC is 150 feet. Further north in Macon, WMAC on 940, has five 250 ft self supporters which have been in use since the 1940s. Someone has mentioned in another post that WNEX has a self supporter. In Atlanta, WAOK uses two of the four self supporters installed when the then WATL moved from 1400 to 1380. The other two were destroyed in a tornado that came through in the 1970s or 80s.

On FM, Blue Ridge, GA, WPPL, has a big self supporter which was installed to handle several cellular tenants. The radio station owns the tower.

We've lost a bunch of them over the years. WMOC, now WGFS, Covington had one when it went on the air at 1490. WMGA in Moultrie had a Truscon 325 ft self supporter which was taken down a couple years ago. Someone has already mentioned the three four hundred foot towers of the old 630 WSAV in Savannah. WMJM in Cordele had a 300 ft one for 1490. The old 1420 WRBL in Columbus had two which I understand have been dismantled to make way for a shopping center.


Witchlover said:
In another topic, antenna considerations have become part of the discussion -- specifically the amount of land required to support tower guy wires and their anchors. This has set me to thinking about free-standing towers which require no guy wires, counter poises and similar means of support.

What is the maximum height a free-standing tower may attain? Is there a point where the land occupied by the base piers would require more acreage than a guyed tower of equivalent height? What other considerations would turn the decision to a guyed system rather than a free-standing tower? I assume the free-standing towers would be erected at greater cost, due to the requirements of construction: Would the cost of tower maintenance be similar, or would one tower be less expensive to maintain than the other?

The WGAU tower in Athens is one of the only free-standing towers I know of in Georgia. It is something of an historical treasure because the only other tower like it anywhere in the world was destroyed by Allied bombers in World War II. How many other free standing towers remain in service in the state? Am I incorrect that the old WTOC tower in Savannah is one of them? The building was built around the base of the tower. When Channel 11 relocated, there was an article in the Savannah papers about the tower, how it was built, and what goes into having to maintain such an installation.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks, Mr. Sutton. I always thought the free-standing towers such an impressive sight, especially at night. It's good to know there are some still in use. Hopefully, those who own them will continue to consider them worth keeping for as long as they can be serviceable. And hopefully, we won't lose too many of the few remaining to tornadoes, hurricanes or the odd errant earthquake.
 
Yes, they are. I'll drive out of my way to see one used by a radio station. Near Georgia, here are some more. Up in Chattanooga, 1310 WDOD, The Wonderful Dynamo of Dixie, uses three of them although one fell a year or so ago and is being replaced. In South Carolina, 1390 WXTC, the old WCSC, has three of them. The center tower, over 400 ft, tall is being rebuilt right now. Birmingham has a couple great AM self supporter sites, 610 WAGG and 1070 WAPI. Both are two towers. Back to South Carolina, probably the most attractive AM self supporter site I've seen is the three tower array of 950 WORD at Spartanburg, the old WSPA. Asheville has the four tower self supporting array of the old 1380 WLOS.

With the construction of so many cell towers in recent years, the regulators were concerned about the structural integrity of self supporting towers so for the foundations, the code requirements were doubled and the cost of building a self supporter has increased tremendously. These old AM towers have been standing for 70 plus years and survived tornadoes, hurricanes and wind storms but as is often the case, the regulators over reached and by doing so probably ended the construction of self supporters for radio stations.
Witchlover said:
Thanks, Mr. Sutton. I always thought the free-standing towers such an impressive sight, especially at night. It's good to know there are some still in use. Hopefully, those who own them will continue to consider them worth keeping for as long as they can be serviceable. And hopefully, we won't lose too many of the few remaining to tornadoes, hurricanes or the odd errant earthquake.
Click to expand...
 
I believe the 5 towers for WMAC in Macon were replaced a few years ago. Not sure if they were replaced with self supporters or not.
 
The WMAC towers are the same 250' self-support structures that have been there for decades. IIRC, the work that was done on the towers was related to some long-needed repairs to the grounding system and general antenna systems. But the towers were not replaced.

Of course, when they made the "repairs", whatever they did just about completely destroyed the signal at 940; even the daytime 50kw signal pretty much sucks now. And the 10kw night signal is now pretty much a waste of electricity for the financially-strapped Cumulus.

Cumulus spent seven figures about 5 years ago to buy up the land that those towers are on from Gannett. The site is located on land that is EXTREMELY valuable for development, right on the Bibb/Monroe county line. They then spent untold thousands of dollars "fixing up" the transmitter site. Seems to me they would have been better off to simply pursue a different transmitter location and downgrade to 10kw or so (which they studied the feasibility of doing during the US Broadcasting days; in fact, IIRC, Oscar Leverette and Hal Sutton had found a potential site that would have worked at 10kw, either non-directional or with a DA-2 pattern, I can't remember which).

But then... you would expect nothing less from the Big Fluffy Cloud Company.

TDO
 
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