[RZ]

This article brings us all up to date on the antenna situation in NYC. Hey--I might be 3 miles from the "big" antenna at Great Kills landfill !

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/30/ny...rchpv=nytToday

 

[Phil NYC]

Putting up a broadcast tower on Governor's Island or Fresh Kills sounds like an excellent idea. My impression is that these towers can be put up very quickly. This web page details the construction of a 980 foot tower in Texas in 11 days, using a "Skycrane" helicopter. I bet you could get analog and digital up and running in less time than it will take to file the next legal motion up in Alpine.

 

[Jackipp]

It would be great to get back those stations. I was just starting to feel good about all the proggramming that was comming out on the network stations. and to have a tower in our back yard on Staten Island would truly be a dream come true. Just think, I was getting signals in the 80's and low 90's what would I get if this tower were only 7 miles from my house and 2000 feet in the air!


Hoping for Fresh Kills Tower thread in the future!!!


Jack Ipp

 

[pdennant]

Quote:

My impression is that these towers can be put up very quickly. This web page details the construction of a 980 foot tower in Texas in 11 days, using a "Skycrane" helicopter. I bet you could get analog and digital up and running in less time than it will take to file the next legal motion up in Alpine.

Putting up the towers, once all the sections of the tower have been assembled, is the easy part of the project. It is akin to painting...the easy part is slapping the paint on whereas most of the work is in the preparation.


The rolled steel used for the vertical legs of a tower are not manufactured in this country. Once the tower is designed, that steel has to be ordered from Europe. In 1999, when I ordered a new 1094 foot tower for my station, it took five months to get that steel from France to the tower manufacturer in South Carolina. It took another four months for this steel to be processed and put together with other steel stock for what would eventually become the tower sections. All of that is sent to the site where the giant erector set has to be assembled into the actual vertical sections of the tower.


Of course, while all that is going on, the concrete for the base and the guy anchors can be installed at the site because that takes a good deal of time to accomplish too. It took two months to sink nine guy anchors and the tower base at my site.


The biggest problem will be coordinating the center of radiation (vertically and horizontally) in the market: The northeast corridor has a lot of short-spaced markets (Boston, Providence, Hartford/New Haven, NYC, Philadelphia) that require special attention in order to prevent interference between them. This is why the FCC originally restricted tower heights to 1000 feet for this area (Zone I in the FCC Rules & Regs) when the original Table of Allotments was defined in the early 1950's. Moving the NYC site to a 2000 foot tower 14 miles south of the WTC is going to upset the broadcasters in Philadelphia.


It's all going to be worked out. It will happen in a relatively quick time frame for the engineers and project managers that will be involved with the project but that will seem like a long time for the viewing public.


- Peter Dennant

 

[Phil NYC]

Quote:

The rolled steel used for the vertical legs of a tower are not manufactured in this country. Once the tower is designed, that steel has to be ordered from Europe. In 1999, when I ordered a new 1094 foot tower for my station, it took five months to get that steel from France to the tower manufacturer in South Carolina.

Pity that we can't just truck it 75 miles from Bethlehem, PA anymore...

 

[holysin]

Why am I not holding my breath.... I've become acustomed to seeing only 3 channels in HD from TWCNYC Would be nice to see crossing jordan and the likes though...

 

[arthurvino]

3 Channels? I thought there were only 2?

I sincerely hope we will get those new towers soon.. I am 20 miles from Staten Island also, and would love to see more channels in HDTV.. Which brings my next question.. How many more HDTV channels would we get with this new tower??


Quote:

Originally posted by holysin Why am I not holding my breath.... I've become acustomed to seeing only 3 channels in HD from TWCNYC Would be nice to see crossing jordan and the likes though...

 

[John Mason]

Quote:

Originally posted by arthurvino 3 Channels? I thought there were only 2?

NYC's Time Warner Cable (TWC) subscribers now get CBS, HBO, and Showtime in HDTV. Lost Sept. 11th were PBS, NBC, ABC, and others undergoing HDTV startup.


What caught my attention was the table indicating about 50 percent of the households here are on cable, about 20 percent-plus on satellite, and the rest OTA (NTSC and H/DTV). The article outlines why broadcasters are pushing the panic button due to lost advertising revenue (reduced viewer base, lower ad rates).


Certainly hope broadcasters join together to rapidly erect another central antenna. But wish they'd join with local cable firms to expand the delivery of both NTSC and H/DTV via fiber optics. With fiber, the power required for delivery can be measured in milliwatts instead of kilowatts.


An elaborate network of fibers already links much of the Northeast and the rest of the country. NYC's TWC delivery of NTSC stations, due to cable/fiber links, wasn't interrupted. Time Warner should be attempting to expand its subscriber base with a full menu of HDTV sources obtained directly from networks. Even if these sources aren't broadcasting H/DTV locally, it's hard to imagine any bureaucrat restricting an alternative delivery from stations that already had antennas atop the World Trade Center. -- John

 

[PaulM9999]

The article is encouraging because it makes the financial losses sound significant. None of the networks can afford to have a 20% drop in viewership in the #1 market, particularly with the Super Bowl and Olympics only months away.


I expect the broadcasters to find a quick solution and use the network's strong lobbying power to overcome any FCC/FAA hurdles.


Since the digitals won't be back until a new tower is built, it is in all of our best interest to see this done quickly. Think NBC's advertisers want significant viewership declines in NYC during the Olympics?


Also, November will surely be a tough sweeps month for the NYC stations. They'll want to try to work something out ASAP, ideally before the Feb. sweeps.