I chatted recently with a colleague who works in broadcasting, telling him about my love of towers, the romance and the lore.
He told me, “I’ve never understood the fascination people have with them.”
He might have well said “All mimsey were the borogroves” for all the sense he was making to me. Not understand our fascination with towers??
I can still recall working weekends in the small offices of WNRK(AM) on Walther Road in Newark, Del., circa 1981. Just me in a tiny newsroom, with my college pal Ron Baker, the part-time jock, sitting at the on-air board on the other side of the window.
Often, while waiting for my next newscast to come around, I’d step out the back door of that little building and gaze upon the station’s towers sitting in a cornfield in their glory. That door faced west, so the view was especially remarkable as sunset neared.
“My voice travels through those towers,” I thought. “Who can tell how far it goes, and how many people can hear?” That cornfield is a housing subdivision now, and that little AM station is long gone.
I also remember driving in the dusk up the driveway to the studios of Wilmington stations WDEL(AM) and WSTW(FM) in the early 1980s. I was there to sit in the studio while my friend Robin Bryson played music on cart machines and took phone calls from lonely listeners. I soaked up everything about the inside of a radio station, marveling at the reel-to-reel automation system, peeking inside the transmitter room — it was all so cool. But best of all was seeing the directional array, right out back, its obstruction beacons glimmering.
What a thrill.
The fascination has never left me. My wife knows that if we’re driving along and I see towers, I’m going to interrupt whatever she’s saying and point them out and make an observation about whether it’s an FM or AM or both, whether it’s directional and whether it looks like the site is well kept. I don’t know if she cares, at least she pretends to.
During my years with Radio World I’ve also visited the legendary infrastructure just under the tip of the Empire State Building. And I’ve had the honor of adding my signature at the base of the broadcast mast atop One World Trade Center — true thrills for this child of New York City.
But whether it’s a candelabra mast next to an interstate, or an antenna farm in Philadelphia, or a 2,000-foot beauty standing on the Midwest plains or a small stick next to a beat-up shack along a Virginia country road, I still find broadcast towers remarkably interesting.
And even as the definition of “radio” has morphed (for non-purists) to include streaming and apps, a tower remains for me a unique symbol of the romance of sending voice and music to listeners who are dozens or hundreds or thousands of miles away. I hope you share that wonder and that our industry never loses it entirely.
In the latest issue of Radio World, Nick Langan shares the history of Sutro Tower, one of broadcasting’s iconic tower structures. Read that here.
Got a suggestion for us for a future feature? Email me at [email protected]. Or just drop me a line telling me about your favorite tower site, and the memories that make it special to you.
Radio World welcomes letters to the editor on this or any story. Email [email protected].
