PLACES WITH EXTRA LARGE RADIO/TV TOWERS NEAR DOWNTOWN

[FreddyE1977]

Downtown Pittsburgh is geographically pretty small.

[...]

Probably 20 towers within a four or five mile radius. But interestingly not a single tower atop any of the Downtown buildings.

Pittsburgh has always been a tough OTA market because so many of the stations are at divergent compass points (notably WTAE-TV way out toward Elizabeth, where 96.1 was for a while before moving to the close-in AM site).

Because cable penetration is so high there, I surmise that there wasn't a compelling need to build a master antenna to consolidate everyone's DTV at a common location. Still, in a "what if" scenario, the US Steel Building may well have achieved that goal. I remember when it was being built -- its top could be clearly seen coming south from Wexford on Perry Highway. Likewise, it was visible at quite a few spots out on Lebanon Church Road.

Had OTA been a real concern of Hearst, a move closer in (such as the hypothetical USS Building master antenna site) may have been possible for WTAE's RF-51 channel. I don't see any co-channel conflicts nearby that kept them in Buena Vista when channel 4 had to keep its distance from WCMH in Columbus.

A single azimuth aim makes things so much easier for we antenna viewers. Here in Dallas-Ft. Worth, every single full-power television is clustered within 2 degrees at Cedar Hill. No rotor is needed...just aim once and you're done.

I lived within Pittsburgh city limits, where a combination of rough terrain and political infighting kept us from
getting cable until the summer of 1982. And yes, we were probably one of the hottest Tenna Rotor markets
of all time. 2, 11 and 53 were pretty much on line to the north, 13 and 16 slightly to the east, 22 and 40
when the signed on farther east, and 4 way, way down south somewhere. Was hardly worth buying a set
with a remote because you were going to have to get up to change the Tenna Rotor or move your rabbit
ears anyhow.

A lot of us in my neighborhood could not get WTAE-TV very well at all, no matter what we did.
This used to really tick everyone off back when the Steelers were on Monday Night Football in the 70's.
And WPGH always threw out a very unstable signal with many ghosts in our area. Some
of my neighbors claimed it was due to the proximity of the US Steel Building. I don't know.
WSTV from Steubenville, Ohio came in better than most of the locals.

 

[Bob E. Nelson]

A lot of stations started out with fairly impressive towers located near downtown. I was thinking of Dallas where both KDAF?/4 and WFAA/8 had their towers downtown. Not very efficient for serving Fort Worth, and eventually tall buildings made those towers obsolete. 4 and 8 moved to Cedar Hill many years ago, but are the towers still standing?

KDFW (ex-KRLD) still has the A-frame downtown. When I last checked, I didn't see anything that looked capable of broadcast as a backup. It's probably not needed anyway since the original Hill Tower in Cedar Hill has both KDFW's and WFAA's backup. A bit to the south of the old tower is the current Hill Tower with the candelabra.

I don't think WFAA ever transmitter from the core of downtown. Their tower (erected during its KBTV days) is north and west of the CBD at KERA's studio facilities on Harry Hines Blvd.

There is a tower with the WFAA call letters emblazoned in neon at their Communications Center location on Young Street but it's rather short for broadcast use. I believe it has the the microwave antenna out to Cedar Hill and other communications antennas.

 

[recto101]

Hey, what about the Sutro Tower in SF?
While not in Downtown, its pretty hard to miss from there... Or is it?


And you are forgetting the most prominent towers in history: The Eiffel in Paris, (yes, its a radio tower), The Empire State Building, and once standing World Trade Towers.

You didn't specifify towers that weren't buildings!

What about sears tower

 

[wncc]

[What about sears tower

What choo talking about Willis?

 

[PDXREXX]

How About Seattle
KOMO, KING and KIRO towers are
on top of Queen Anne Hill And
KCTS, KSTW and KZJO are on
Capitol Hill

 

[rjoc]

KTBY FOX4 in Downtown Anchorage Alaska had (maybe still does) it's antenna atop the Captain Cook Hotel...A real beauty too, with bat-wing antennas on it...It formerly belonged to the old KENI, now KTUU TV Channel 2 until the mid 1980's, then they moved across Cook Inlet to a then-new 650-foot tower. KIMO TV Channel 13 had it's antenna atop an old apartment building on East Fourth Avenue. Lots of old photos from the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 show a picture of a damaged building with a tower atop it...The building was torn down in the 90s and the transmiiter site was moved to elsewhere in Anchorage in the 70s..

Also in Honolulu three of the local channels all had prominent antennas atop hotels in the Waikiki area. They shared with FM also. Again, this was back in 80s when I was stationed there. I believe they have all been moved to a mountian-top site...I know there is a website somewhere showing them...

 

[dave73]

The Hilton Hotel building in Downtown Milwaukee has a tower on top of its building in the downtown aera. It sticks out much more than most other towers that are on the north side of Milwaukee. Last I heard, only Class A TV station WMKE-CA broadcasts from that tower.