Tallest Tower ? ?

[radiorob2.0]

Here is a rundown from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_structures_in_the_world

The WAVE tower was twenty years too late. It did improve coverage but by 1990 cable was off and running. What do you do with a 1739 foot tall guy mast?

I don't know, but it's a beauty. I've sat in front of it and drooled. But what do you do with it? Huge tax write off I suppose.

Why doesn't WAVE use this tower for its DT signal? I think I know why but would like to hear from the experts...

Nope...they're using the old WAVE analog tower on the Knobs.

BUT WHY aren't they using this one?

My guess is two fold....

First the distance from Louisville makes the tower tricky for DT compared to the Knobs covering the metro. Second, you have to have an antenna aimed towards that tower.

As I said above, the tower was a great concept but twenty years too late.

 

[KR4BD]

The Lexingon area was well served with a Grade A signal by WAVE from that monster tower in analog days... Now... NO WAVE-3 at all, here. I can get WBNA-21 and WBKI-34, however 100% of the time while WHAS and WLKY are marginal and pixelated most of the time. WAVE and the others are "no shows" here unless some ducting is going on. By the way, I have a VHF-UHF yagi up 60 feet at my SW Lexington location. I hope WAVE has informed all their advertisers they elimated about 40% of their coverage area when the reverted back to the Floyds Knob tower with the DT transistion.....

Yes, I know I am in the Lexington Market and should not even care about getting Louisville TV, but I DO CARE...

 

[KEVIN Country]

Two of the tallest towers I've seen in AL belong to WAFF 48 in Huntsville estimated around 1470 ft, and WYDE-FM in Cullman, with a antenna HAAT of 1346 ft. I find it amazing that WAFF has such a huge stick, yet their DT signal is pathetic, I have difficulty pulling it in even with an outdoor antenna, just 20 miles north of Huntsville.

Here's a page from the tower site of the week archives, on Huntsville, including the massive stick of WAFF: http://www.fybush.com/site-020612.html

You all should see the American Tower site in the Mobile, AL/Pensacola, FL market. It's in Baldwin County, Alabama, between Mobile and Pensacola. This thing is not just tall. It is HUGE. It's officially listed on the American Tower site as 1929 ft, but before Channel 3 took it's analog antenna down, it was 2,000 ft from the base to the top of the antenna! I work there occasionally for one of the stations housed on it. It is breathtaking! Everyone that ever comes out there with us is totally amazed.

Here's the base of it from the American Tower site:http://www.americantower.com/OASISPublic/SiteADO/PhotoViewer.asp?lngSiteId=23335&lngTowerId=-1&intATFileIndex=1

Somewhere, I've got a picture of myself standing on top of the stairs leading up to the ice bridge. I look like an ant!!

 

[tomservo]

Staying in Bama for a bit, the Tuscaloosa tall tower once housed WDBB TV and 102.5 in its early days. Both abandoned the site a while back, leaving the KX4I 2m ham repeater as the only real tenant. Imagine having a 2,062 foot tower for your ham repeater. It had phenomenal coverage! I heard it was reached by people in Memphis, Huntsville and Atlanta...

 

[TheRover]

World's Toughest Fixes 2008 episode : 2,000-Foot KDLT Tower - Anenna replacement

The NatGeo Channel (National Geographic Cable Channel), on it's show "World's Toughest Fixes" with Sean Riley, had, in the their first season, in 2008, an episode "2,000-Foot Tower", where the antenna mast of the 2,000 foot KDLT-TV-NBC, SIOUX FALLS, SD tower is replaced.

Here's the link to the episode: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/worlds-toughest-fixes/3564/Overview

6 PHOTOS: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/worlds-toughest-fixes/3564/Overview#tab-Photos

5 Min. VIDEO: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/worlds-toughest-fixes/3564/Overview#tab-Videos

 

[radiorob2.0]

Here is a rundown from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_structures_in_the_world

The WAVE tower was twenty years too late. It did improve coverage but by 1990 cable was off and running. What do you do with a 1739 foot tall guy mast?

How about using it as a Franklin antenna for 560 kHz (wavelength 1757.6 feet) or 570 kHz (1726.76 feet)?
From what I understand, a Franklin antenna is a center-fed full-wavelength tower without a ground plane. An example is discussed in this article about KFBK on fybush.com.


A Franklin antenna for 540 kHz (lowest regular broadcast frequency typically in use on the AM band - there are TISs on 530 but they aren't going to be using antennas taller than 15 meters) would be 555.56 meters (1822.7 feet) tall. Now... what I think would be impressive... would be a self-supporting Franklin mast for a longwave station on 153 kHz - it would be 1960.784 meters (6433 feet, or about 1.22 miles) tall!

Not a Franklin but just as impressive when it stood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_radio_mast

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Heck, KVSP in Eakley, OK (OKC market intended target) is 2000 feet tall. That one in North Texas was originally put up by the same bunch then sold. KVSP's TOH goes something like this, "Broadcasting from the biggest damn tow'a in the state of Oklahoma, KVSP Anadarko, pow pow Power 1035..."

 

[dxer720]

Unfortunately, the 2000-foot WEAU-13/WAXX-FM 104.5 tower in Fairchild, WI, "... the tallest man made structure east of the Mississippi...", collapsed in a winter storm, on March 22nd.

Here's some info on the tower from WEAU-TV's website.
http://www.weau.com/tower

 

[tomservo]

It wasn't the tallest man-made structure eat of the Mississippi. It wasn't even the tallest broadcast tower. The tallest man-made structure is the CN Tower, I think. And there's probably more 2000' towers east of the Mississippi than that one in WI. As I mentioned before, the 2062' foot old WDBB-TV tower in Tuscaloosa was the tallest for a while, and just down the road from it is the WCFT-TV tower right at 2000'.

Maybe the tallest tower in Wisconsin…

 

[fybush]

The CN Tower is only 1700-ish feet tall, considerably shorter than WAXX or any of the standing towers in the 2000-foot class. Where CN takes pride of place is being the tallest self-supporting structure in North America, and tallest occupied structure as well.

 

[dxer720]

I'm sorry. I took WEAU-TV's word on that "tallest" claim.

 

[fybush]

Things I've learned in 25 years of writing about towers: Never, ever take a station at its word about whether its tower is the tallest (or, indeed, even about what its actual tower height is!) ;D

 

[dxer720]

Thanks, Scott. Knew you'd be the one to get to the bottom (or top) of this. Great spotting.

 

[tomservo]

D'oh. I get all these "records" confused too. Sorry.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Scott, do you know of a tower that's more than 2000 feet tall? Is that all the FAA will give a station under any situation? (no mountians, etc)

 

[fybush]

2,063 feet is the maximum that's been allowed - KVLY-TV near Fargo holds that record. I'm not quite sure how they got the extra 63 feet. There are a few others in the vicinity of 2,060 feet...nothing taller.

 

[RadioDaze]

It's Wikipedia, so take it for what it's worth, but the other radio/TV towers in the U.S. over the 2,000-foot mark are, after the aforementioned KVLY-TV 2,063-foot mast, are the adjacent KXJB-TV tower at 2,060 feet (both near Blanchard, ND) and the KXTV/KOVR tower in Walnut Grove, CA at 2,049 feet.

After this, at least in the U.S, there's a nineteen-way tie for structures at the 2,000-foot level. There would be more, but several have collapsed.

 

[radiorob2.0]

Scott, do you know of a tower that's more than 2000 feet tall? Is that all the FAA will give a station under any situation? (no mountians, etc)

When it seemed everyone was building these tall mast back in the sixties, the FAA finally said "enough" on the grounds of aviation hazards. So the FCC and the FAA decided that 2000 feet would be the maximum height about ground, though I believe HAAT is a factor for a mast. However, this doesn't include situation where the surroundings provide height such as locating a transmitting antenna atop a mountain. Though, I believe there is still limitation on the mast height atop a hill or a mountain.

 

[trusty]

Of course, if you're looking for signal reach, the number you would want is HAAT (height above average terrain (sp?)) where most western stations use a nearby mountain. The most extreme I know is Albuquerque where you have 80 ft. towers on top of Sandia Crest overlooking the city at more than 4100 ft. (Now, THAT's a tower.) ;D

Any others more extreme than that? (even outside USA)

 

[jd]

Any others more extreme than that? (even outside USA)

No, at least in this country. Checking the HAAT's of the Albuquerque stations it looks like the highest is KLYT 88.3, at 4245 feet. In coverage it falls short of the others, though, since it's it Class C0 running just 4.1kW. The Class C's there generally run about 20kW, like KKOB-FM, which has a HAAT of 4150 feet.