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 Previous: Space QSO Provides Arizona Youngsters Something to Remember | ![Next (later) Story](/images/sty-up.gif "Ham Radio Ready as Residents Flee "Potentially Catastrophic" Katrina"){kind=small} Next: Ham Radio Ready as Residents Flee "Potentially Catastrophic" Katrina |
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
August 26, 2005
Tours of broadcast radio station antenna farms are available at the four Web sites we surf to this week.
Last week's installment of Surfin', "Simply Antennas," visited a Web site dedicated to helping radio amateurs and radio enthusiasts with their antenna projects. This week, we go to the opposite end of the antenna spectrum and check out Web sites that visit commercial broadcast radio (AM, FM, and TV) antenna tower sites.
Fybush.com is a wonderful Web site to explore. It is full of tidbits of information regarding broadcast radio towers and tower sites, as well as broadcast radio history. In addition to reading stories about the towers, you can view pictures, too. The Web site includes towers in 31 US states, four Canadian provinces, Mexico, England, France, and American Samoa. Scott Fybush, the brains behind the operation, actually travels to radio tower sites to document them for this Web site.
Growing up in the shadow of the antenna farm of the local AM radio "powerhouse," I always enjoy reading about broadcast station antenna farms (the RF is in my blood). When I visited Fybush.com to check it out for this column, I got hooked reading about various antenna farms featured in the Web site's "Tower Site of the Week."
 Fybush.com documents AM, FM, and TV broadcast station antenna farms throughout North America and beyond. |
There is a "Tower Site of the Week" index and naturally, I checked it out to read about the local antenna sites in Connecticut that I am familiar with. Next, I read about out-of-state antenna sites that I have visited, like Mount Washington, NH, and the Empire State Building in "the City." The Empire State Building story led me to the Alpine, NJ, Armstrong Tower story and that led me to the tragic World Trade Towers story.
Hours passed and one thing led to another including other tower Web sites, like the NECRAT Tower & Antenna Photography site of Mike Fitzpatrick, KB1HWH, where, lo and behold, I found pictures of those towers that were practically in my front yard when I was a kid. By the way, NECRAT is the acronym for North East Commercial Radio Antennas and Towers.
I also revisited the Radio and Broadcast Technology Page of Jim Hawkins, WA2WHV, which tours "shortwave and standard broadcast transmitter facilities" throughout the USA. Surfin' visited this site years ago and it is just as interesting today as when I first wrote about here way back in November 2001. I also must mention Michigan Broadcast Towers of Tom and Sheila Bosscher, K8TB and W8IIE, which provides a visual tour of towers in the Wolverine State.
(Thank you, Chuck Milhorn, N4ZDG, for suggesting Fybush.com.)
Until next week, keep on surfin'.
Editor' note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, never met an
antenna farm he did not like! Write to Stan about antennas, towers, and farms
at wa1lou@arrl.net.
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