You’ve made me consider aspects I never even thought of before. For me, I was more of a user of the tower, rather than understanding the intricacies of the tower structure. This is why we hire experts in this field who understand these aspects. Thank you for the insight!

@@TheBroadcastEngineer There are many very interesting attributes about towers you might never notice. Like on an AM tower ROHN would design a 3’ cap. This is higher than the normal 6” cap on non AM towers. Why? Tall grass sometimes grows next to the tower and the morning dew from the grass can short the tower to ground and also create a fire hazard. Climbing, Towers are supposed to have either a climbing ladder or step bolts. Fall arrest devices (safety climb) are added to conform to OSHA and require a safety harness that fits the tower safety climb. Only the safety climb manufacturer’s harness will work with the manufacturer’s safety climb. A safety climb is a small cable positioned over the ladder that the climber clips into and prevent falls. A high liability item. Large 2000’ towers have elevators. 2000’ is the hight limit for towers in the USA because of the FAA rules.

I climb towers all across America for a living and on a windy day (20-40mph) climbing guy towers are absolutely terrifying and the fact that towers are just bones there's no shielding from the wind, on occasion I've actually had to stop climbing and just hold on for dear life!!

Back in the 90s, I used to work on towers, SST, Guyed, and mono poles. ROHN towers were my favorite towers to work on. And yes, there is more to a guyed tower than people realize.

Trucker here based in Birmingham AL. Many years ago I used to haul many Rohn shelters built in Bessemer AL. Most were cell site and fiber optic regen sites set from Cali to Texas to New England. Sometimes I had to get the gen sets for 3-4 locations. That was not fun

CQ CQ. My extra class expired many years ago. 45 years ago. I still remember Morse Code, enough so that I do it to passing road signs. When valid I only worked CW. Call sign was .- - -... ....- .- -. - -. - -. -.

I had been hoping to eventually get in contact with Patrick. I was the operator of a 'not-at-all' Part 15 AM in Central NM and he eventually stumbled upon it while passing through. Based on your comment, I am too late. Maybe I can at least find a copy of his book.

I’ve watched a lot of tower climbing videos. Fascinating but not something I could do.

How do you personally deal with the fear?

​@@JeffMTXsome people don't have the fear

Thank you. I was waiting for him to mention that and wondered why he hadn't.

Because there aren’t many shortwave stations out there. Hasn’t been a new shortwave station in the US for many many many years. Most that are left are falling apart and once something dies they’re gone for good.

@@TheBroadcastEngineer Not true did you forget about us Radio Amateurs ? :) I did get what you meant by that though..

@Ztbmrc1 Besides shortwave I believe WWVB in Colorado uses a dipole strung between towers.

@gatesmw50 on the bucket list…

That sounds like a very interesting story!

@trbowlin, glad you mentioned broadcst AM towers as radio navigation aids. Although not commonly used by pilots today because VHF and satellite nav are the current standard, many (usually older) aircraft are still equipped with ADF or Automatic Direction Finding equipment that is basically a type of AM radio receiver with directional sensing and a panel-mounted display with a dial type compass indicator and a rotating pointer needle that indicates relative bearing to station, analogous to signal strength. In the early days of aviation a pilot or navigator sensed direction to an AM broadcast station manually by rotating a steerable loop antenna below the aircraft, looking for peak signal at a selected frequency. This was called 'DF.' Tune, identify station by call letters or other info ("...and the weather in Ft. Wayne is...) then simply rotate the antenna and listen for highest volume over the speaker or earphones, or observed a signal-strength meter or small oscilloscope tube for indication of peak reception. To this day a small part of the Khz band of the frequency spectrum is still dedicated to omnidirectional broadcast beacons and directional marker beacons used by the FAA for air navigation and as position markers on certain terminal-area flight procedures. Their exact locations and broadcast frequencies are noted on aeronautical charts. Normally they are modulated to emit a three-letter Morse identifier which is repeated at regular time intervals and heard onboard the aircraft to verify station ID, but some can also carry voice. Commercial AM broadcast towers are a useful form of navigation aid and in most ADF-equipped aircraft you can also listen for entertainment and general information. FAA radiobeacons are adjacent to commercial AM on the spectrum and have lower frequencies.

After that phone call from the FCC I never overlooked it again. Lots of post it notes and calendar reminders. 😁

Taking things off the NOTAMs is important. As a pilot, it is just another distraction to remember. Thanks for remembering to remove them.

Yes, I forgot to mention the ice off the guy lines. I’m finding a lot of people are coming from the IT world being thrust into the broadcast engineer world. There isn’t usually an ice danger fixing someone’s printer.

And in cold conditions, ice falling from towers can be fatal. Ice from our 2000 footer carried almost a mile away.

There aren’t any stations in the Los Angeles market that will risk their engineers by putting so much pressure that they feel they have to climb the tower “or else.” In a small market, it’s just not worth the risk. Especially if the #1 or #2 markets aren’t exerting that kind of pressure.

@markdraper3469 I don’t understand…

@@TheBroadcastEngineer Sry.. oops on my part.

@@markdraper3469 No worries. I was just trying to understand. Oildale is in Kern County outside of Bakersfield.

We have a gentle alarm in our NOC, but if they ignore that for too long a loud piezo beeper kicks on.

Can't remember the last time we had jocks. All server based playout including intros and patter. Sigh.

Ungrounded towers can develop a pretty good static charge. Even Series fed towers - ever see/hear St. Elmo's Fire? He also refers to being zapped by a tower receiving RF energy from nearby RF sources, like other towers in a multi tower array. Before working on a tower in a directional array, you need to detune/ground the one on which you are working. This includes feedlines and tuning components. Never leave home without your Jesus stick and ground strap.

Seems to me that a drain resistor would take care of static charge. Some high enough resistance that the transmitter wouldn't care, but low enough to effectively bleed off charge.

Whoa!!!! That’s wild!!!

Or like the automatic transcription put? 😂

Got into a pissing match with a keyboard warrior once. He will go to his grave convinced they are guide wires. You cannot each he who will not learn, alas.

It's spelled guyed wires.

@@dansteel9873 The tower is the guyed structure not the wires. I think you're confusing guyed and guide, two different words.

😂

@williesnyder2899, the guy wires are almost completely inelastic. They 'give' a bit under gravity and dynamic loads such as wind, ice accumulaton or seismic activity but, essentially, do not 'take' to return to original length or tension. From time to time they need to be retensioned properly to maintain the straightness, vertical alignment and overall structural integrity of the antenna system. Not unlike tuning a stringed musical instrument.

Most of the times, they’re willing to share what they’re doing. I know I was any time I had anyone ask what I was doing.

@@TheBroadcastEngineer They seemed to enjoy sharing their knowledge and experience with someone also interested in Radio Engineering. Nice to know they’re not the only ones. :)

We get pretty lonely on the road. Most of use travel a couple weeks straight at a time fixing towers all across the country!! Just don't catch me on the last day or two, way too exhausted to entertain or talk 😔 normally we climb at least once a day, sometimes 2 or 3!

@f1vet930 that’s a long stretch!

Ha! I didn’t go though the transcript. I forget to check that sometimes.

Why isn't it "guide" lines?

@@rudolphguarnacci197 Why is there nothing loving or joyous about a "lovejoy?"

@@whuffer5103 I give up, why?

4ôúř Eié Dothé Thinqué tis from ye days of Olè Whencé French und Dutch Windjammers did use such Ropes to stabilise Thiné main Mast

I don’t know where you got 800,000 foot tower from…

And that is why we have radiation exposure limits now.

Have you experienced any side affects of doing that when you got older?

Like coming down with cancer.

Nope. Non ionizing radiation.

Same reasons we wouldn't test/turn on aircraft weather radar on the ground, when anyone was in front of the aircraft.

Yep! Ended up being a really nice day.

You have to be carful with the county road to access those towers as it can get quite muddy as I discovered. I stopped by there once (from road) when in town, and was heading up to Berthoud to visit my brother and had always seen these towers from I-25 nearby. One of them is KDEN-TV and the other is a KKSE-FM "Altitude Sports" Coordinates of KDEN tower 40°05'57.0"N 104°54'03.2"W at 1243' above ground. Nearly all Denver metro stations are on Lookout Mountain near Golden.

@marcusdamberger That Lookout Mountain TV site is amazing! Yeah, I have no illusions that my Subaru would do all that great in mud.

Yikes! There are those people who just want to watch the world burn. And towers collapse.

@@TheBroadcastEngineer It was the KANU tower in Lawrence, KS. I think it was in late 1982 when the incident happened.

I’ll be sure to ask when I talk to an AM expert (someone with many many many more years of AM experience than I have).

Yeah. He misspoke several times.

I’ve never had an RF burn, but have seen some people who have. I’d prefer to refrain from experiencing that.

It’s all about wavelength and resonant frequencies with body parts. At AM frequencies not really an issue. FM frequencies will cause heating effects on some smaller body parts.

This is a hotly debated issue. It's called the effects of non-ionizing radiation on human tissue. Non-ionizing radiation is basically radio waves versus ionizing radiation like X-Rays, and radiation emitted by radioactive material. There is some evidence that children living under high tension power lines have a greater likelihood of developing leukemia than those that don't. Yet the people that work on those power lines seem not to be affected. Microwaves are kind of on the dividing line between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. Some people think holding your cell-phone close to your body, especially your head may make you at higher risk for certain forms of cancer. Some people are really concerned about 5G cellular, since those towers have to be much closer to the user than the older technology. Now, having said this for every study that says there are these negative effects, there is another that says no, it's perfectly safe. Marcus is right, do not ever touch an AM broadcast tower, ever. I've drawn electrical arcs off the guy wires at an FM tower just running a screw driver over it. It could have been from static electricity and the place was pretty hot with RF. There were two FM stations on tower, and the NOAA Weather Radio Station, but it's only 250 watts. I've been messing with RF since I was a kid, I'm a grandfather now. I do maintenance on some Ham repeaters. These are located in areas where there are broadcast transmitters, cell phone systems, and other transmitters. I've been very close to a TV transmit antenna, and had my face inches from our own 120 W VHF transmit antenna. I developed cataracts when I was only 40. Did this behavior have something to do with that? I don't know. My doctors think they see some changes in my optic nerves, however my distance vision is still very good. So, they keep poking and prodding at me, but still no definite answers. I do know this for certain, the FCC and the EPA are now making us answer questions about RF safety on the Ham tests, and we are supposed to do an RF safety evaluation on our stations. Even though the highest power level we can run is 1500 watts PEP. Most of us on our VHF and UHF stations seldom exceed 50 watts if that much. Pretty tame compared to broadcast transmitters. We once asked the engineer at a 50 KW AM station, what happens if you touch the tower while standing on the ground. His answer was, "you will disappear in a pink puff of smoke." Something like that happened to a would be copper thief at another AM transmitter site.

I wouldn't want to get a serious RF burn....I'm theorizing that there is enough current at a 50kW AM radio station tower. I wouldn't want to be these foolish Russian teens: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mJ-Fgpyl05qxoH0.htmlsi=x_M_tYHEk82dY6gD

I am! Not active right now…

At the previous job, the old main antenna’s “tower” was actually the antenna for on old TV station.

I went to DeVry in the late 80s. It was a great school. I went there because of my interest in all things radio since I was a kid. AM, FM, CB, etc. transmitters, receivers, amplifiers. Still have a fondness for it all. Wish I could put my interest to good use.

Shirley, you can’t be serious.

@@chuckinhouston9952 Shirley is an entirely different person from me , all together.

I lived in the UK for about 5 years, first in Manchester, and then up near Blackburn. Winter Hill was an impressive transmitter tower to see, it was huge.

😂

Directional AM stations have at least two towers. The output from the transmitter goes into a "phasor" that controls the amount of signal that goes to each tower and the phase between each. If you did any vector analysis in trig class, you will recall that different signals will add and subtract with time. This translates to more signal radiating in some directions and less in others. When a pattern change is done, relays do change between the controls for the daytime and nighttime pattern. Sometimes, even a tower or two are energized or de-energized depending on the need. I used to work at a four tower directional station but we only had one pattern. This was in the 70s and stations had to keep a first class licensed operation at the transmitter. There wasn't much else to do, so I manually calculated the patterning using the information from the phase monitor. I used an add, subtract, multiply, and divide calculator and a slide rule for the trig functions. It was necessary to calculate two patterns using two towers then use those figures to calculate the finial pattern. Signal strength was calculated at 10 degree increments. Imagine my surprise when I plotted the pattern and it came out reversed. I missed a sign somewhere. It was a good exercise, but I didn't do it over.

@@michaeldaniels3639 thanks. Yes, I'm acquainted with a phased array antenna from my amateur radio hobby. I was unaware that AM stations use multiple phased towers. I was guessing that it was by using relays to activate / deactivate ground radials.

Yeah I didn’t cover that as in detail as I could. But yes top lights flash and others are steady.

@@TheBroadcastEngineer you covered it well it was very interesting, can you do a video sometime on what the power of the signal does i.e when they say the signal is 160kw or 5 kw, and what the advantage of height does, not only by being on a mountain top but the way national tv and radio tends to be at the top of a mast and the local station ( at least here in Ireland tends to have the radome or antenna nearer the bottom, that would be interesting ( i meant megawatts not kilowatts) 🫣

The first part was north of Denver at the KKSE transmitter site. The second part was in Englewood (don’t remember the call sign of that site). Third part I’m at home.

That’s a good question. I would think a little safer because the lightning has a path to ground, but I’d still try to stay inside a building or shelter than at the base of the tower.

I hate to be that guy, but there was a lot wrong with that movie.

I had to help get a guy off our 1100 footer. He was about 800 feet up, realized he was really out of his element. Two firefighters came up after two of us went up and tethered him to the tower. Firefighters took him down 50 feet at a time. When he got on the ground he got a different kind of tether. Looked like shiny metal bracelets.

Depends on what’s needed.

I would guess that it would depend on the tower crew building the tower.

Such as?

Some are yes. But it’s more the exception than rule.

Why was the station on while you were climbing to adjust the antenna?

If you look at the balls, one is connected to the tower and one is connected to ground. You basically want to jumper those together without moving them. You're just grounding the tower. Yes, you want to have the transmitter off, otherwise, you could risk damaging the system.

The specifics of how to short a tower are probably best not explained in a public forum like KZfaq for safety and liability reasons. People who have intentions on climbing without permission or training might think they know what they're doing and get it wrong. Most likely ending in a fatality.

Ohhhhhhh gotcha.

It depends on where the antenna is located. If it’s on a tower more than a regular ladder or accessible from a bucket truck then I’d hire professionals. Just be sure the station is off before you get close or touch the antenna.

LP is just 100 watts But lock it out it can give you a nasty jolt our AAARRRGGGG one is 150 watts

Often times we do LED upgrade installs, normally the guys will toss the beacons/side markers off the tower to save time and energy. Some of the older incandescent stuff is pretty cool, I collect a lot of the stuff we decommission and re engineer with LEDs for home display/entertainment purposes!

@f1vet930 I came into possession of a side marker. It’s a cool little display piece.

Sorry, no.

That's cool! I unfortunately, don't have any tips for making a model version of one.

ok

What scale model and what are you using as a media like toothpicks or model car sprue. Also what type of tower are you building, self support, guy tower, monopole, horizontal billboard?

@@dansteel9873 toothpicks and chopsticks that are connected with hot glue and the tower is self-supporting and I decided it's a cell Tower

I can guy anything.

@@markpell8979 If you ever designed a tower or a mast, or the foundation for you'd know they are very different.

@@DuaneKerzic Duane, you are quite correct at the hair-splitting level but for most people, even many in the associated 'tower industries,' the terms are often used interchangeably without harming the intended meaning. If you or I are looking at a specific upright structure used to broadcast and/or receive radio signals, we know what it is but we should also know what most others would call it. If we don't use the generally accepted term we are immediately recognized as nerds or geeks, which I'm ok with but I prefer to be understood at the common language level without having to translate a term I just used to the uninformed or uninitiated. So generally and practically, the common-usage distinction between a tower or mast is irrelevant or unimportant because both words are used to mean the same thing. And technically, any upright structures that 'tower' in height above local terrain and other structures can be guyed for additional support and/or stability, and often are. I definitely understand the technical differences between towers and masts, and I thank you for this opportunity for two well-informed people to have an interesting topical discussion. I think I gave you exactly what you were looking for- someone who would disagree with you at a friendly, sporting level even if the debating point is highly esoteric. Glad to be of service.

Most of the time they don't. If they do, it could be from friction and sparks as the tower collapses and falls into dry brush.

I’m thinking you’re meaning a bit later on when it’s dark. I couldn’t get the whole tower in frame. Those are the side markers.

Sorry, I meant at 8:48. I didn’t notice anything change aside from the flashing light disappearing.

There's no light above HIS left shoulder, but there is one above HIS right. Good grief!

You can call the FCC and they’ll send some nastygrams to the station.

@@TheBroadcastEngineer I bet they know the light is out and just don’t want to hire a climber just to change a few bulbs. Most white lights come with multiple bulbs that will switch when one burns out. Flashing beacons are a special type of light, expensive. Red light are out of style. Some people have a nervous reaction to red light, strange but true.