Your dad is a legend! You must be so proud of him!

Your dad is an excellent presenter. He made it easy for the non-broadcast engineer to understand by not using commonly used terms likee Line, STL, RPU, Vault, and Tenant. Once again thanks for the great videos.

It’s crazy how TV and radio TX’s have evolved. A once entire room, now just one air cooled rack with a bunch of small solid state amps can push quite a few KW, mindblowing compared to what it all was. On behalf of us broadcast nerds, thanks for the production work and upload! Always fun to see.

I am not an engineer but I am an electrician...Let me tell you, your dad does an amazing job of explaining how things work in real life...very practical without ever trying to seem smart. Just a lot of knowledge with an amazing ability to simply explain how things work.

I'm halfway through the video and I just had to pause and leave a comment about how awesome this video is.

Now I've watched the video, it's amazing. Who ever gets to see all the work involved in engineering to get a radio tower signal? Makes me really appreciate my radio even more.

As a telecom engineer I loved seeing all of this. Thanks to both you and your dad for this amazing walkthrough!

Your dad is a wonderful engineer and a fantastic presenter of information. An absolute joy to hear. Thank you both.

I remember when they started moving the stations in St. Louis to that tower. To say I was drooling is an understatement. Seeing all that Heliax and all that wiring is amazing. It was definitely an engineering masterpiece to get all of those stations on one tower. I know at least one Amateur Radio repeater has a remote receive site on there (I think the K9HAM repeater out of Alton). Your Dad definitely gave a fantastic explanation of how that all works. I was nodding my head on a lot of stuff he was taking about. Especially gain on the antennas. Power on FM systems is considered ERP (effective radiated power) which is a what is being pushed up the coax and then combined with the gain of the antenna system. Thanks again to your Dad and you for putting this video together. I know I appreciated it.

I worked at a 5 MW EIRP UHF TV station in Florida. Our antenna was at the top of the 1700 foot tower. We had a eight input FM antenna at the 1200 foot level and another TV station was added at around 1400 feet. This was in the Orlando market. We had five FM stations on the tower, and a Trunking radio system which predates affordable Cell service. There were also leased two way radios for things like the Forestry Service. We had two microwave STL systems. One from or original transmitter site that was fed from a former CARS link when the station transitioned from local access cable TV to OTA. the second STL came from our new studio just North of Orlando. The Comark TV transmitter used three 65KW EEV Klystrons, and large rectangular waveguide after the Diplexer. I moved and rebuilt a RCA TTU25B transmitter in 1990 that had been at our old transmitter site. It was then used on Ch 58 in Destin Florida. It was 25 KW Visual, and 12.5 KW maximum Aural. The Aural section was a modified FM Broadcast transmitter that tripled the output frequency before it went to the final amplifier. That transmitter was released from final test at RCA on the day that I was born. 😁 M first job as a Broadcast Engineer was in 1973, at a US Army radio and TV station, in Alaska. The TV station was on Channel eight, and monochrome but I managed to transmit our station ID in color with no color equipment just to prove what an idiot the Information Officer was. The radio station was on 980KHz, and the only AM station that I ever saw that used a center tapped horizontal dioole antenna. I was allowed to tour both the now closed VOA station at Bethany Ohio in 1969, and the WLW site with the legendary 500KW 700KHz transmitter. The VOA station was being upgraded from the original Crosley transmitters to new transmitters. These used servos to auto tune each stage, so they were more agile than the original Crosley units. There were ten identical new 50 KW transmitters that could be paralleled and the huge East/West curtain antenna aimed towards Europe. A new control room for the site was being built as well. It was fed by microwave from Washington DC, and it was to be the secondary master control site in case the DC studios were down or were destroyed. This was in the days that the TV networks were fed by AT&T microwave links from city to city. I later worked at Microdyne which supplied a lot of Microwave equipment to Cable TV and Broadcast stations. I was repairing C-band sat equipment in the '90s in my shop. I built a C-band signal generator from a highly modified tunable down converter.

Hi from Australia. I was a broadcast technical officer during the 70s and 80s. Retired (changed professions) just as solid state was taking over. Loved the walk through. I felt right at home.

Takes me back to being a kid when my grandfather was an engineer for a local station and would take me with him to their AM transmitter.

As a guy that volunteers to climb towers for ham radio sites, I don't really get to see broadcast FM stuff. That basement was awesome!

If I had a chance to do it all over again, but in the past, such as the 1950's and 60's, I can think of two paths of engineering that would have been awesome: 1) civil engineering: particularly the building of the interstate system throughout the US, especially through the west (something seriously romantic about it all), blasting tunnels through mountains, creating switchbacks, slicing through no-man's land...and 2) RF engineering: in the heyday of AM/FM, practicing and applying the art and science, and a little black magic, of RF design, construction, and troubleshooting.

as someone who is closer to your dads age than you I really appreciated this video. I wish I would have had any dad to teach me about anything. I tried to make a huge effort to teach my daughter everything I learned as I never was fortunate enough to get a son. She turned out better than I could ever imagine. Anyway enough of a pity party, I loved this video, and we need more of dad.

What a completely totally awesome video! You and your dad completely rock! I've read all about this tower and have always wanted an inside view of how it works and now you have satisfied this curiosity. Thanks so much for such an amazing video. This seems like such an amazing feat of engineering to be able to integrate so many stations on the same tower. And what a complex management and control system there is. Just wow! Thanks for an amazing video!

Great tour Mr. Geerling. Radio engineering gets in your blood. I've been at it for over 45 years now and everyday is as exciting and unpredictable as the day before.

16:00 - As an IT guy, I can relate to that issue. People plugging in stuff to your UPS and ruining the battery up time! I had to start doing the same as that fiber installer did, place labels over the receptacles.

As an electrical engineer with 30 years in telecom operations and St. Louis resident who grew up listening to some of these stations, this was FASCINATING. The power logistics are similar to central office operations. Using nitrogen to keep water vapor out of cables to avoid shorts is also similar, only with higher stakes due to the voltages.

Well done video! I enjoyed seeing various broadcast tower insides over the years and this one was one of the best since your dad shared so much about it. Thank you for putting the time into making the video!

Wow this is freaking awesome!!!!! Thanks some much for showing us around! I always wondered how it's done and what's inside such a building. Blows my mind how much different techniques are used.

Amazing and super super interesting!! Please do more of these. I love seeing how things work behind the scenes.

One of the best videos I've seen on KZfaq in years... thank both so much. So much useful info, I will be re-watching this one many times.

Really cool video Jeff, I've always been fascinated with communications and RF tech. Thanks

Awesome! Watchin' from Cambodia. Feel like I'm just behind you having a great tour of this awesome facility! Thank you and you dad so much! A Merry Christmas and abundantly blessed 2023!

Love this channel , seeing you share these experiences with your father is so special. Spending time with your father is so important. It reminds me how grateful I am that I have good relationship with my father and to take advantage of that to nerd out together like you and your dad do ! Keep it up Jeff ! Hope you are doing well!

Being a broadcast engineer.... this brought back good memories. Great job recording and editing. Thanks.

So glad I came across this video. It answers so many questions I had about high power transmission. My mind is blown at the size of the coax in those FM transmitters!

Incredible!! I knew this would be interesting but did not expect it to actually be one of my favorite videos on youtube, thank you!!!

Your dad seems like a genuinely nice guy. Big kudos to him!

A fascinating series of insights into modern RF transmission. Large diameter coax with solid inner and outer cores. Never seen that before. Jeff's Dad is cool.

I remember seeing this tower, and it was interesting that it was in the middle of a cemetery. I remember when I used to live in Mehlville as a kid, and a friend and I visited that same cemetery. I thought it was super interesting that there was a gigantic tower in the middle, and I always wondered what it was for, but know I know! Pretty awesome, and greatly appreciated, especially considering K-SHEE was one of the stations I listened to a lot. Thank you for sharing this with us!

Really enjoyed this video. I worked on shipboard long range radar in the Navy, then airport surveillance radar, radar beacon, and automated radar terminal systems for the FAA for 33 years before retiring 18 years ago. Also enjoy all your videos Jeff! Live just North of you near Springfield, IL.

Great stuff, thank you for sharing! Your Dad explaining every step in detail is legendary!

Fascinating tour and story. Great history, towards the end, where he detailed the changing technologies from copper, to T1 to fiber. I grew up in the copper era and remember when only a single station could operate from any given tower. I'd love to hear more from you and your Dad. Great video!

Early in the pandemic I spent an afternoon driving around St Louis to find all the major broadcast antennas and this was definitely the most impressive. Very cool to see what's going on inside. Thanks for the video!

This video is absolutly amazing! Loved the detailled explanation!

Great video! I'm considering going into the RF Engineering field, so this was very interesting. Thanks to your dad for the awesome tour and to you for the excellent video. Just found your channel and I'm glad I did.

Great video Jeff, was a pleasure watching you and your dad.

I service and commission Eaton UPS systems, including the 9355 20 to 30kva units in the video. This video answered a ton of questions that I had as a service tech going into these buildings. From one tech geek to another, I salute you!

Awesome video!! I do communications for the FAA so seeing some of the same principles and equipment we use, used in other industries and applications is awesome! Definitely showing the coworkers this video tomorrow

This was my kind of video, very detailed, asked about all the stuff I wanted to ask about, and did not waste time on unnecessary production. Thank you

Wow, I feel like Neo waking up and realizing that reality as we know it is just made up of pipes and cables. All of different sizes mind you, carrying all the information, liquids and gases to maintain the illusion we all live in. And not only that, there are entities moving around in this beautiful dimension, making sure everything works. Respect to your father!

This was fascinating ! Thanks for letting us in.

Wow amazing, Idk why youtube recommended me this video but im glad i watched it. Your dad is excellent presenter and knows his stuff really well, you asked really good questions and top notch editing

This is one of my all-time favorite videos. I've visited a few tower sites and even climbed a fairly tall tower, but nothing like the one in the video. Some of that coaxial hardline is just massive compared to what I've seen.

Many years ago I would get giggly showing off my little Radio Shack FM transmitter kit hooked up to 50 feet of rg-58 into a tuned homemade 1/4 wave GP antenna mounted 30ft off the ground with broom sticks duct taped together strapped to the chimney lol...Putting out 15mw of dirty RF delivering clean audio 2 miles out still makes me grin...This tower and broadcast station is super and other worldly!!! There are still a few really good stations here in eastern part of US and still fire up the sdr to see what kind of good music and other programming is live....Cheers to your pops for having such a cool job ❤

This is AMAZING. Well done. You and your dad should do a bunch of stuff.

Fascinating and informatitive video presentation! Thanks to you and your dad for sharing this!

Fascinating. Your dad is awesome. Thank you.

We used to pass the tower daily and we knew that it was the Y98 broadcast tower. I figured there was a few more there but WOW! not that much. I know that many a Amateur radio operator would love to have a antenna on a tower but that is just amazing. Enjoyed the video.

What an amazing tour. Thank you!!

Great job! This brings back a lot of memories. I was a transmitter at a combines FM/TV/microwave site back in the 1970's when everything was analog. Our TV transmitter fed a high gain antenna to get 5 million watt visual power and 1.25 million aural power. FM was side mounted near the top. Microwave reflectors at two levels pointing to the roof where the dishes were, one for studio to transmitter links (STL), the other for intercity-microwave to get network feed from a sister station in another city. Two-way antennas a couple hundres feet up for remote site pickup, and a 5 thousand watt AM station down the road about five miles. Everything monitored and controlled from the TV/FM site. It was a blast. Then computers came along and I jumped ship. Retired from the computer biz 27 years later. My how things have changed! Big thanks to you and your dad!!

Great work on this video guys! I've always loved listen to the 'old timers' tell what they know and stories from the past and Dad is clearly a great one to listen to!

Your Father really knows his stuff. Thanks for sharing this 🙏

Can you please do more content in this field. I would love to know more about the Digital rf signal part of things. The OB microwave thing was also very interesting to hear. It makes sense, I just always thought that they sent the signal to the studio and then to the tower.

This was so interesting! Thank you! I already watched part 2, and I'm looking forward to the TV and AM videos.

Absolutely huge thanks to your dad! Incredible quality and amount of information! I've been looking for it by years :D veeery interesting

Dad never answered your question/comment about AM radio towers. As I recall, in AM the tower is the antenna, as the wavelength is huge (compared to FM), and the base bearing is usually a ceramic dielectric insulator rather than the grounded one here. So, an AM antenna is easy to pick out, it's just a bare tower with nothing bolted to the sides (and they are never as huge as this thing).

Antennas do NOT increase the amount of power coming out of them. My guess is the ERP (Effective Radiated Power) may be 1 megawatt, but the power out but is 3-to-6 db (250 to 500 kW). The antenna shapes the radiated RF field to present on a signal at the receiving antenna a signal which would be as strong as 1 megawatt. if the antenna had no "gain". The gain from the antenna comes from shaping the radiated power that would have gone straight up and "pushing" it out to the sided or in some other way "focusing" the radiated signal in the direction of the intended receiving antenna. Again, Antenna do NOT add power to the radiated signal. EVER.

This is awesome to see! I just graduated as an electrical engineer and I took a class on communications systems just last semester. Super cool to see everything in the field!

Great video! Please do more of these. Hope everything will be ok for you Jeff! Lovely to see you two together. Great team :)

This was extremely interesting, for some reason broadcast radio tech was always fascinating for me, especially now that digital and computing augments the whole thing. If you have any similar content in mind for the future, don't hold back :) I think for most of us living outside the US a separate video about HD radio would be really interesting. Your dad is amazing by the way.

Okay, you have officially and certifiably totally BOGGLED my mind with this. I spent many years working in large data centers, and the biggest of those were mere tinker-toy child's-play compared to this incredible radio technology. Who would have guessed?

Thank you guys for this video! I've always been interested!!👍👍

Fascinating tour. Thank you for posting!

I'm not a radio/electronics/orwhatever engineer, but I would really guess that a LOT less was necessary for FM Transmitting. Even of THIS scale. This really blew my mind. Technology never fails to amaze me !! PS. That bottom single point for that entire tower, is something I SERIOUSLY didn't expect either. :D

I wish more stuff like this existed. It's fascinating to see how things work behind the curtain, and so many operations are shrouded in secrecy for "security" or "intellectual property." As if someone's asking, gee, I wonder how they do all of that, so I can make nefarious plans? They do it the same way everyone else does it - there's no secret sauce here, it's just applied physics. Why not let people enjoy seeing how it works? That is to say, thank you -- the transparency is appreciated by the curious minds out here in the ether.

your dad is awesome af. It would be so fun and funny to see your dad and my dad hang out and talk shop. Love it!

That is so cool... So.. all those copper "pipes" are not being used as conduits for wires, but they are actually coax in their own right - So the exterior of ALL of those copper pipes were the ground for the signal on the internal conductor? I would love to see the inside of one of those 90 degree bends..

Thank you for this tour. Very interesting!

I love this. Shared it all over with my ham and STL nerd friends. Also if they happen to be surprising those unused Agilent/HP power meters, let me know :)

Incredible! I'm interested in how the signals can be combined to have multiple transmitters on one antenna. That's well beyond my knowledge of radio.

I learned so much from this. It answered some questions I didn’t know I had. Thank you and your dad for doing this. Fascinating.

Thanks for the informative walk through. Air gap Coax cable that look like large water pipes- love it. I learnt radio but we never discussed how you can send multiple radio signals on the one antenna. I love the respect you show towards your dad and the respect he shows to you.

What a brilliant video, please do so much more of this, I really enjoy all cooperation videos that you two do together 😍 At around 5:00, are the pipes filled with actual cables, or are the pipes themselves waveguides, as it is often done in high power HF? And how do the pipes transition to the tower, since they are stiff and can’t move with the tower like the other wires do, that run to the tower? Incredible video, please do so much more!!!

Astonished you can walk around with such high power everywhere

Fascinating stuff, as usual. Thanks for another great video

This is so cool! I love you two geeking out! Your dad seems to be very knowledgeable! As a starting RF engineer your dad and you are an inspiration ^^ hope to see more of you ^^

Love that combiner in the basement. Does all that ambient RF on the tower mess up the two-way radio guys' receivers who are also on the tower? Do they need to run cavities on their linefeed to keep from getting overwhelmed from the broadcast RF?

That was a great look at what's behind a tower. I wonder what the power bill is like. Also, I'm surprised the drone had no problem flying and filming so close to such a powerful source of RF.

Great tour and explanation of the facility. Thanks. I had to chuckle when you showed the controller displaying SWR, just like a ham shack.

THIS.... this is your best video! Thanks for the tour... !

Super tower and no mention of how tall it is? Or did I miss it?

EXCELLENT REPORT!! Wonderful detailed explanation and award winning video. I truly enjoyed it. Thank You!!!

What an awesome video/tour. He explained everything well and not a boring moment.

Saying "puts out a million watts of RF" and "having 1MW of EIRP" are two quite different things. Sure it's effective radiated RF in certain directions is the same as if it were 1MW isotropic, but that does not make it 1MW of RF output. Just sayin. Loved the video regardless - always great to look around a production transmission facility. Dave Jones did a great facility walkthrough too; well worth a look.

I love this insight into critical infrastructure.

Probably one of the coolest video's I've ever watched. It's amazing to see how these things work.

I've wanted a tour of one of these forever! Thank you so much for sharing

too cool man ... but go on.... stick a pico w on it

This seems a little more complicated than my icecast/shoutcast server.

Great video! You’re extremely fortunate to have such a dad. Awesome! 👍👍👍👊😎

VERY interesting video!! I'm impressed by all the copper pipes. At that wattage, I guess those are more waveguide than cable. Good of your Dad to provide such unique insight.

Well now we know where all the copper goes.

Great video however, there was just one thing that irritated me, you kept referring to this as a "Tower", but technically it is a Mast, a Tower is self-supporting and thus has no guy wires, and a structure with guy wires is called a Mast.

Fantastic stuff! Thanks a lot for sharing, much appreciated.

This is like sitting down at your legend Great Grand dad and listen to all the amazing stories of the past. Awesome vid! LOVE IT!

Great explanation of the setup.. I used to work at a radio station when I was younger and loved talking to the engineers and absorbing everything I could.. never got a chance to go out to the transmission site.

This is right up my street! Love it