Attendees of the upcoming AES show in New York will have a special treat — on display will be an element from the “Alford Antenna,” a pioneering master antenna which ringed the observation deck near the top of the Empire State Building from 1965 until April this year.
[Read: Empire State Building to Celebrate Antenna’s 50th Anniversary]
The element has been donated to the AES.
“The Alford Antenna is an important part of what made broadcasting as we know it today possible, and the Empire State Building is excited to share this special piece of history with the Audio Engineering Society,” said Anthony E. Malkin, Chairman and CEO of Empire State Realty Trust.
[Read: Under a Cocoon, ESB Plans for New FM Era]
A release explains the significance of the antenna, designed by Andrew Alford: “When the Alford master FM antenna was installed around the 102nd-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building in 1965, it was a revolutionary development in broadcast technology. Instead of operating at lower power from various rooftops and hilltops around the city, for the first time multiple FM stations could operate at full power from a single shared antenna system atop what was then the tallest building in the U.S., carrying the signals of more than a dozen top New York radio stations to tens of millions of listeners in the tristate area.”
The AES New York 2019 show runs Oct. 16–19 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York.
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