The AM Forum

Check out the first picture heh heh heh:

http://www.homes.com/listing/171769995/ALPINE_NJ_07620

Is that a ski lift? Looks like a major one to me.

klc

That's the Armstrong Tower in Alpine NJ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Tower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Tower)

I grew up in Alpine, could see the tower from my bedroom window.

73, Bill N2BC

Cool site for an AM Expedition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sdAc9XmyBw

W2A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHeQUHOTGjc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuueqTl0fDo

One would wonder why Dave is checking homes in Alpine. You win the lottery?

price is too much for that, forget it. the taxes alone would be crazy. In TX, you can get mugh bigger for less, let the neighbor run some of his cattle on it and pay low taxes due to ag exemption. My uncle has a big place on a 100 acre spread and it is classified as a wildlife preserve, so taxes are super low. He had a family of bobcats, deer, turkeys, and a mountain lion (but the big cat's mate is on a neighbor's property) plus many other critters, all run free. The big cats don't come around the house and run away or don't like to be seen, it's quite safe for the humans. The deer may not feel the same..

Not sure if cattle are allowed in some parts of NJ. On the other hand, salaries are probably much higher up North if that's how the well-off folks live.

Not yet  :(

Weren't the folks in that area the same ones who were calling for the destruction of the tower a few years back? They should be thankful.  ;D

I was admiring that tower this fall when we brought an old Tug boat from Long Island to Ithaca via the Hudson. When we cleared the bridge from the Harlem river and turned north into the Hudson this was the view, and the view back down towards the city. I hadn't realized how close they were until I made this trip.

An amazing piece of history.

You're right: I wouldn't pay 50k for that place, let alone 5 mil.

It's funny, how some houses seem to belong in the place where they're built, and others seem like an architect's bad dream, as if they're 1% carpentry and 99% hype. This one, IMHO, is definitely in the later category.

This brings up another subject: one of the things that the Internet is/will affect is housing patterns: as electronic communication becomes ubiquitous, and a new generation of managers who grew up with iphones and apps and "always on" connectivity and call centers in Mumbai come to positions of authority, they will abandon the old world paradigm of "warm body" management and (finally!) start to judge their subordinates by results instead of appearances.

Of course, that's neither here nor there, but the change will mean that lower-level employees will be able to perform their jobs without showing up in a city just to make their bosses feel like they are productive because their bodies are nearby and still warm. Ergo, hyper-expensive and hyper-hyped real estate will become the exception instead of the norm: the minions who used to trek into the city to keep the machinery of American bureaucracy spinning will be able to do their jobs with video conferences, mobile phones, and fiber-optic cables.

In other words, Armstrong's tower will, at long last, serve as a monument to an engineer's genius instead of to the paper-and-inkwell past that so many managers cling to as if it were their path to salvation.

FWIW. YMMV.

Bill, W1AC

Lawyers made a few dollars and the tower is still there.

Cool shots, Kevin.

We've got some HD video taken during W2A from the TOP of the Armstrong tower, looking out over the water where you were tug-chug-tugging along.  Will dig that up and try to post a snippet.  It was an exceptionally clear day besides, surprising us since it was the middle of August.

Oh I'd love to see that video from the top of the tower. I've looked at some of the operation video in the past, but didn't know there was an aerial view. Is that video posted on YouTube or someplace?

I've stopped at the overlook a little further south on one trip years ago on a clear February day and marveled at the view into the city from there. From the top of Armstrongs tower it must be stupendous! What a great place to test a new radio service from.

We had fun transiting the state in the old tug. It was built in 1959 and used on the Chesapeake for shallow water work. A family member acquired it in the early 80's and restored it to motor around in, but has become too frail to enjoy it any more.

During the trip I installed my 706 and AH4 and ran a wire from the wheelhouse up over the stack on a fiberglass pole and back to the rear over the canopy. Tuned up on 75 meters up. Made some HF slopbucket QSOs with it, but the ignition noise from the gas engine it's been refitted with made listening to AM difficult except when we were tied up or anchored. When I get to working on it in the spring high on the list will be some ignition suppression and a better HF antenna layout.  ;D