New WMTV-15 and WBUW-57 Tower

[Previous Page] 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 [Next Page]
[First Page] [Last Page]

400 - 7/14/04 - 23:15 Cropped view. He's at the location where the wire and rope are attached to the antenna.	401 - 7/14/04 - 23:16 Enlarged view.	402 - 7/14/04 - 23:22 Cropped view. Now the wire and rope have to be cleared from the top of the antenna.
403 - 7/14/04 - 23:29 Cropped view.	404 - 7/14/04 - 23:31 Cropped view. He's got it cleared.	405 - 7/14/04 - 23:34 Cropped view. A job well done, now they are getting ready to come down.
406 - 7/14/04 - 23:36 Cropped view. They start the descent.	407 - 7/14/04 - 23:37 Cropped view.	408 - 7/14/04 - 23:40 The complete tower with two of the three antennas installed. The little dot about 1/3rd of the way up the tower, is the crew coming down.
409 - 7/15/04 - 01:09 The towers lit by the setting sun. It did not turn out exactly the way I wanted it.	410 - 7/15/04 - 01:11 Cropped view.	411 - 7/16/04 - 21:00 Storm rolled through. Not much going to get done :-).
412 - 7/16/04 - 21:02 It was a short but nasty storm.	413 - 7/17/04 - 23:51 Work is being completed on the framework between the tower and the transmitter building.	414 - 7/18/04 - 20:52 Cropped view. The temporary Ch 15 antenna is up and running at low power. As a frame of reference, you can see one of the FM antennas above it.
415 - 7/18/04 - 23:17 The crew and "bosses." Copies of each of the photos were given, as in free, to all. From left to right, they are: John W, Jake H, Stacy B, Brax, Beau, Brad, Dave B, Nathan R, Jason H and Vic D.	416 - 7/18/04 - 23:17 The "bosses."	417 - 7/18/04 - 23:18 The crew.
418 - 7/19/04 - 22:54 The last word I had yesterday was that the Ch 15 antenna wasn't going to be moved yet. Obviously wrong, since I saw the antenna missing from the top of the old tower when I left work. I figured they were done for the day, since it was close to the 6pm qutting time.	419 - 7/19/04 - 23:01 But, when I finished eating at the restaurant, I spotted the antenna on top of the new tower. I missed the hoisting of the antenna from the old tower to the new (no it didn't hurt my feelings :-)	420 - 7/19/04 - 23:02 They are supposed to be off the tower by 6pm, because of the Little League games. But something has changed, since the players are let onto the fields before the crew is down.
421 - 7/19/04 - 23:04 I didn't expect to be able to actually document the last TV antenna being placed on the tower, since I leave for Pittsburgh tomorrow.	422 - 7/19/04 - 23:08 The lighting for these images is not the best, because another storm is moving in.	423 - 7/19/04 - 23:10 See if you can spot members of the crew in these shots.
424 - 7/19/04 - 23:12	425 - 7/19/04 - 23:13	426 - 7/19/04 - 23:15
427 - 7/19/04 - 23:19	428 - 7/19/04 - 23:22 The clouds are moving in from the northwest (behind me and to the left. Notice the rainbow, which I didn't see when I was shooting the pix.	429 - 7/19/04 - 23:27
430 - 7/19/04 - 23:29	431 - 7/19/04 - 23:30	432 - 7/19/04 - 23:33 DONE! The last topmost antenna is in place!
433 - 7/19/04 - 23:36 According to Brax, that is Beau climbing the antenna in order to remove the connections to the hoist wire. I had another shot of Beau partway up the antenna, but the camera didn't focus correctly.	434 - 7/19/04 - 23:37	435 - 7/19/04 - 23:38 After disconnecting the ball, he slowly let's it rest against the tower. The last thing you need is for this extremely heavy ball slamming against the temporary structure.
433 - 7/19/04 - 23:40 The last connection to the antenna is undone.	434 - 7/19/04 - 23:42 Beau is on the way down. As he is coming down, I could hear the whooping from the top of the tower. The two trolly lines that are attached, and can be seen going to the left of the antenna, will be brought down later. The crew reached the ground about 30 seconds before the downpour hit. I wish the image would have been better, but the bad weather was making it darker.	435 - 7/24/04 - 16:33 That's Beau working on the feed for the Ch 15 antenna.
436 - 7/24/04 - 17:54 Looking toward the east. The two streets going top/bottom are Tokay Blvd (on the left) and Odana Rd on the right. In the center they both intersect with Whitney Way. The shopping center in the center (east of Whitney Way) is Westgate Mall. To the upper-left is downtown Madison. Near the lower-left is the WKOW-TV studios.	437 - 7/24/04 - 17:54 Crop showing downtown Madison.	438 - 7/24/04 - 17:54 Crop showing WKOW-TV (Ch 27) studios.
439 - 7/24/04 - 17:54 This shot can be placed underneath image #436. You can see, in the top center, the WKOW-TV BUDs. That is Tokay Blvd joining Odana Rd. The beltline is in the lower right.	440 - 7/24/04 - 17:55 It's that Beau character again. The street that you see in the center, is Forward Drive.	441 - 7/24/04 - 18:45 In the center is West Towne Mall. The four lane highway is the beltline (USH 12 and 14). The street intersecting the beltline is Gammon Rd. The street that intersects Gammon Rd, in front of West Towne Mall, is Odana Rd. The reflection of the sun is at the intersection of the beltline and Mineral Point Rd. My thanks to the crew for shooting these photos while I was gone.
442 - 7/31/04 - 17:55 Condition of the tower, the day after I returned. The temporary tower structure and hoist have been removed. The lighting is now operational.	443 - 7/31/04 - 17:55 A closeup of the top of the tower.	444 - 8/02/04 - 23:12 You can see the tower pieces that were removed and the antenna booms.
445 - 8/02/04 - 23:12 A new spool of cable. I forgot to ask what it was for.	446 - 8/02/04 - 23:12 You can see that some of the spools are now gone.	447 - 8/02/04 - 23:13 A couple of the items moved to the new tower. You can see the cable running up the A-C side of the tower. Interesting that cable for stuff on the B leg is still being run on the A-C side instead of the B-C side.
448 - 8/02/04 - 23:15 A closer view of the antenna booms.	449 - 8/02/04 - 23:16 You can see the coax cable neatly arranged coming from the tower, or to, depending on your point of view :-)	450 - 8/03/04 - 23:40 You might be thinking, what a crappy image. Well, you are kinda right. I needed a dark background before a certain time of the day and the approaching storm provided that dark background. Why? In order to stop the f-stop down and slow down the shutter as much as possible, plus using a 64 ASA setting. Looking at the large image will show that I was able to capture the strobes. It isn't easy capturing strobes. It took five tries to get this one. I would have tried for a closer image, but the rain started.
Notes: There are up to six riggers working up in the tower. The very bottom section is 16' and is one foot AGL. The next six sections at the bottom are about 26.667'. Each remaining section is 20'. The T-bar is 11'. Currently scheduled date for antenna sticks to be installed: 8/1/04. The antennas will be hoisted into place. One of the copper signal feeders will carry channel 15. The other copper feeder will carry a combined 19 and 32 (DTV). The waveguide will carry channel 57. Original images are 2560x1920 - TIFF (5 Mpixel) Starting with the 6/15/04 images, they are 3264x2448 - TIFF (8 Mpixel) Enlarged views are 720x540 cuts Blowup views are 360x270 cuts enlarged to 720x540 The EXIF value for the time the shots were taken is CST, not CDT Starting with the 6/15/04 images, the EXIF value for the time the shots were taken is GMT Images from the top of the tower are 2560x1920 - JPEG (5 Mpixel), CST