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Tower height question

U

upstate29651

I know this is a radio board, but this pertains to TV.

Here in Savannah, GA, the towers we have for TV & FM aren't over 1500' tall. I know the max height is something like 2038'?

Looking at the area the TV stations here try to cover, especially west of here, it would appear these towers are grossly undersized. I know with cable & satellite, this is not much of an issue anymore, but people 80 miles west of Savannah tend to watch Savannah TV stations.

My question is: What was the factor that limited the height of these towers? Is it main coverage area, air traffic issues. etc? There are smaller TV market that have max height on their towers (Florence-MYB SC for one, Houston for another). Seems to me Savannah towers should have been built higher.

G
 
Most likely it's the FAA cap in the area. Being a nice government agency they are usually REAL unwilling to raise the AMSL cap without a HUGE fight.

What usually has happened is someone way back establishes a tower at certain height and after that everyone else can get one that high, but no more.

Red tape my friend.

I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

Yeah.. right.
 
Another factor is the cost of the tower. Adding another 500' to a 1500' tower is a major expense. A 1500' tower would cost, say, $2 million whereas a 2000' tower would add another $1 million or so and the increase in coverage area would not be that great.
Additionally, the stations are apt not to be concerned about coverage outside of their respective markets as they have very little to gain.
There may also be issues when a network station's coverage area extends into the coverage area of another station on the same network.
That being said .... the FAA red tape is probably the biggest issue.
 
Getting past the FAA ("sueing it up") is poisonously expensive. Many broadcasters are unwilling to live with the timetable a potential payback brings... they don't want to discuss anything past 18 months. Consider - there is a story, perhaps apochryphal but one I believe, of a top 10 market wherein a small airport closed and turned to housing developments, thereby changing the airspace needs in the market. One engineer in that market realized the potential of such a change and approached the FAA Airspace Chief with informal discussions of potenmtial tower locations. Supposedly, the Chief pointed to a place on the sectional chart and said "Why not apply for one here?". The broasdcasters in the market were unwilling to band together, and no single one was willing to invest the front money to start such a project, so it died on the vine. And that market is still a home of towers limited to roughly a thousand feet off the deck.
As to costs for stacked steel, figure the cost of a guyed tower increases roughly as the square of the height, and the cost of a self-supporting tower increases as the cube of the height. It ain't chickenfeed when we get up in the air a ways.
 
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