Name That Tower

[W7TFO]

I get to see the old Ch-5 tower every time I trundle into town from home. 

I was born in Phoenix, and when I was a kid it was still in full use.  Today it holds up a few part 90 antennas, and one FM CP job that is no longer in use.

Just nearby still stands the old studios where the Dick Van Dike show was filmed, along with lots of other 50's & 60's nationally syndicated programs.

Word now is since the downtown is 'revitalized' they like the funky look of that old tower, and the cost + liability insurance to take it down isn't worth it.

73DG

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Some BC stations are using new base insulators.

Wow, someone definitely has a beef with that tower set up. *slap*slap* 

[W2VW]

Some buildings look pretty good with a tower...

http://www.necrat.us/empirefm.html

[WBear2GCR]

It is important to keep in mind that Phoenix was at that time all on the floor of a dead flat valley! Wouldn't take much height to get "coverage"...

I was there in the summer of '73, wish I had stayed, and had my eye on outlying "desert" land - the roads just stopped and turned into a dirt track then nuthin'... miles out to the hills north, south and west... miles... and miles of nutin'... all 'burbs now... ah well...

And, back then it was this wonderfully laid back place... I got a job doing repairs, and the "boss" was so calm about things that I didn't even know he had hired me!! No "production" pressure, nothin'... wow... I had been working at Heathkit in NYC, this was a far cry. "...what time should I show up?" He said that they opened at this time, but any time after that was ok... what time was lunch? how long does it take you to eat? How great was THAT!!

I remember a bottler out west on Camelback I think, bottles of soda at 5cents a pop.

                           _-_-

[AJ1G]

Took a "walk" on 53rd Street in NYC on Google Streetview this morning and found the buzzardly looking antenna on a skyscraper I had noticed down there a while back..and it is  indeed of historical significance... From Wikipedia:

The DuMont Building (also known as 515 Madison Avenue) is a 532 foot (162 m) high building at 53rd Street and Madison Avenue in New York City.[1]

The building was built in art deco style by John H. Carpenter and designed by his brother, architect J.E.R. Carpenter who also designed Lincoln Tower as well as nearly 125 buildings along Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue.[2][3][4]

One of the building's most distinctive features is a broadcasting antenna that traces back to the building's role in the first television broadcasts of WNYW in 1938.

In 1938, Allen B. DuMont began broadcasting experimental television W2XWV from the building. In 1944, the station became WABD (named for his initials). The station was one of the few that continued to broadcast through World War II. The broadcast of news about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki in 1945 was considered the beginning of the DuMont Television Network. After the war, the network/station moved to bigger studios - first at the old Wanamaker's store at Ninth and Broadway in Greenwich Village,[5] then the Adelphi Theatre, the Ambassador Theatre, and in 1954 to the Jacob Ruppert Central Opera House at 205 East 67th and which today is the Fox Television Center.

In 1947, the building was the site of a protest by 700 picketers demanding that the United States end diplomatic relations with Spain as a protest against the government of Francisco Franco at the site of the Spanish consulate, located in the building.[6]

In 1962, the 250,000-square-foot (23,000 m2) building was sold to Newmark & Co. which still owns and manages it.[7]

In 1977, WKCR-FM, the radio station of Columbia University, became the first radio (or television) station to transmit from the antenna atop the World Trade Center, having previously broadcast from an antenna atop the DuMont Building for 19 years, until the construction of other surrounding skyscrapers started interfering with the station's signal.[8]


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/42/Dumont-building.jpg

[WBear2GCR]

Take that streeview south to Canal Street on the west side, there is the old AT&T building with very nice towerage on it! I had a nice shot of it on my digital camera, BEFORE IT VANISHED... don't think I downloaded that sequence.

                     _-_-bear