Typical Day's Work in Lyon....
- Thread starter asaratis
- Start date
That's pretty cool. merci.
One of the broadcast facilities I worked for once upgraded its transmitter to a much bigger one, for an existing space on a high-rise building like this one. Upon delivery they found the new transmitter was too big to fit through the door to where it would go. They hired carpenters to expand the door, they still couldn't fit it in. They ended up hiring a helicopter to drop it in from above, like this one is doing. Of course a 100kW transmitter is far heavier than an antenna, and they were doing this right over the busiest street in downtown. I wish I could have been there to watch that.
Aside from the precariousness of "what if something goes wrong", that's a five-figure investment. I also wonder what it cost them to helicopter that monster in there.
This building in Lyon is not as high as photography makes it look --- about 667 feet to the top of the antenna. And then somebody has to tune it.
One of the broadcast facilities I worked for once upgraded its transmitter to a much bigger one, for an existing space on a high-rise building like this one. Upon delivery they found the new transmitter was too big to fit through the door to where it would go. They hired carpenters to expand the door, they still couldn't fit it in. They ended up hiring a helicopter to drop it in from above, like this one is doing. Of course a 100kW transmitter is far heavier than an antenna, and they were doing this right over the busiest street in downtown. I wish I could have been there to watch that.
Aside from the precariousness of "what if something goes wrong", that's a five-figure investment. I also wonder what it cost them to helicopter that monster in there.
This building in Lyon is not as high as photography makes it look --- about 667 feet to the top of the antenna. And then somebody has to tune it.
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- #3
Access seems easy though. There's a permanent ladder inside the mast...unlike most open frame towers where workers have to scale the outside of it.
It took me a while to find that spot on Google Earth...and the top image is highly distorted. The building is not tapered as it appears to be.
This ground view image is also distorted, but one can tell that the building corners are vertical since they are parallel to the street lighting pole to the right and the nearby parking deck stairwell to the left. (I know! I know! I'm a nerd!)
From what I see in the Google Earth views, Lyon looks to be a really nice place to visit. Had I the time and money to spare, I would do so. I did notice in the video what seemed to be a replica of the Eiffel Tower. I think one cannot see the real ET from Lyon.
Access seems easy though. There's a permanent ladder inside the mast...unlike most open frame towers where workers have to scale the outside of it.
It took me a while to find that spot on Google Earth...and the top image is highly distorted. The building is not tapered as it appears to be.
This ground view image is also distorted, but one can tell that the building corners are vertical since they are parallel to the street lighting pole to the right and the nearby parking deck stairwell to the left. (I know! I know! I'm a nerd!)
View attachment 417996
From what I see in the Google Earth views, Lyon looks to be a really nice place to visit. Had I the time and money to spare, I would do so. I did notice in the video what seemed to be a replica of the Eiffel Tower. I think one cannot see the real ET from Lyon.
Oh no, Tour Eiffel is way hundreds of miles away in Paris. I must say though, Eiffel is impressive upon seeing it up close even though one has seen it before in photos.
Lyon is in the southeast corner of France in a plain between two mountain ranges, the Massif Central to the west and the Alps to the east (but not very near). I never spent much time in Lyon, usually just in transit. With apologies to Dalia I found Lyon pretty ordinary. I was more enamoured of Dijon. Had more character. One random memory -- there was a street vendor in Dijon selling mustard. I asked him how many kinds of mustard he had. He said "seventy".
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- #5
Do you reside in Colorado? I have a friend in Grand Junction.
No I'm in Carolina. I am in the mountains but not Colorado-grade mountains.
"Fennario" is mythical -- if there are places by that name it's coincidence.
Are you familiar with antenna masts? I like to tinker with antennas although with severe acrophobia you'd never get me to go up there. It's hairy enough just standing on the top of the high-rise.
I recall back at my first station we went up there to the roof, me and the Chief Engineer, to where our antenna was. First thing he said was "don't look at it". But the only other thing to look at was the expansive panorama of the city all around. I couldn't wait to get back down. Somebody else can tune that thing, not me.
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- #7
I have quite an interest in antennas...of all sorts.
My first encounter with them came via a crystal radio when I was quite young. Then when we got our first TV set (black & white) in 1952 or so.
The terrain in the heart of the Mississippi Delta is about as flat as you'll find in the Southeastern US.
The area within the red perimeter is basically flat, though it is naturally inclined toward the Gulf of Mexico. I spent my childhood near the X and our normal stompin' grounds included just about everything within a hundred mile radius of it plus frequent trips to Memphis, Biloxi/Gulfport, Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
We got our first TV set when I was about nine. Our antenna looked like this one:
There were only three channels available and "tuning the antenna" consisted of nothing more than pointing it toward the chosen broadcast tower. At first, this required going outside and twisting the mast. Then came the TennaRotor that could operated from inside and took several minutes to reach the bearing that was manually set on the control box.
My dad was quite into building things rather than buying them. He had all the machine tools and equipment to fabricate and weld together anything he might design.
He built a telescoping antenna mast consisting of structural steel tubes in diameters that fit within each other. A pulley and cable system routed back and forth within the tubes caused them to telescope upward when the cable was pulled by a hand cranked windlass.
The mast extended from about 15 feet above grade to about 60 feet. When it was fully retracted, it could be pivoted from vertical to horizontal so that the antenna end of it was only 5 feet off the ground.
He installed the largest antenna he could find, along with a TennaRotor and we had the tallest, guyless, rotating TV antenna in town. It could be retracted and stored low to the ground for servicing or in case of predicted high winds.
...and since my dad wanted all of the neighborhood kids to play in OUR backyard, he built us a really stout swing set (using 3" heavy wall structural steel tube) that couldn't be turned over (or moved) and a 12' X 12' X 12" deep sandbox.
Damn! I miss that man!
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Very cool. I too built a crystal radio set when I was a kid, I had forgotten I did that until my brother reminded me. What I remember better is building a shortwave radio and getting my Amateur license at age 14 and then stringing a longwire antenna out the back yard which I ran to my little "shack" in the basement. I'd stay up all night with that rig. I think the next thing I built was an AM radio transmitter, the last step of which was to solder on the antenna wire to whatever point. The instructions said "do not extend this wire - it is your antenna" so the first thing I did was to attach it to my hundred-foot longwire and the next thing I did was to drive an amplifier into it, then I walked around the neighborhood to see how far the signal could go.
Learned a good bit more about antennas since then but there are so many variables, it's become a hobby.
I know the area in your map somewhat, my mother and all her family came from down the River from there, Lincoln County. When we'd go down there to visit is when I saw cable TV for the first time when it was only used in the rural areas.
At one point I put up a rhombic antenna for FM in my parents' house. It took the entire perimeter of the attic. Worked well too.
I have a Yagi like the one in your picture (except just single band, VHF). It's not in use but I hang onto it, they're hard to find any more.
Learned a good bit more about antennas since then but there are so many variables, it's become a hobby.
I know the area in your map somewhat, my mother and all her family came from down the River from there, Lincoln County. When we'd go down there to visit is when I saw cable TV for the first time when it was only used in the rural areas.
At one point I put up a rhombic antenna for FM in my parents' house. It took the entire perimeter of the attic. Worked well too.
I have a Yagi like the one in your picture (except just single band, VHF). It's not in use but I hang onto it, they're hard to find any more.
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