What's inside the 2nd oldest TV tower in the West

[@dougtaylor7724]

It’s a blessing to have a Dad like that. He is one of the “if you knew half of what he forgot, you would be a genius “ type of guys.

[@VPR2B]

Great video -- thanks for all the effort you put into it! I worked at a TV station in California and made quite a few visits to the transmitter -- always in awe of the sheer size of everything out there. Truly massive.

[@NFlight]

Old school cellular guy here... we called the in/out of the combiners the "Goesinta" and the "Comesoutta". :)

[@bobblum5973]

Back in the mid '70s I was just starting to go off to Linn Technical College to turn my electronics hobby into my career. I was also working part time where my Dad worked, and they had an ultrasonic welder that wasn't working. I looked at it a bit, but the technology was beyond me at the time. So my Dad hired an engineer to fix it on a Saturday. I got to watch and learn, and then the engineer took me to downtown St. Louis to see the transmitter for 98.1 FM (then KSLQ) in the top of the Marquette Building. Same type of equipment and huge "copper pipe" coax we see in this video, but on a smaller scale. Too many years ago to remember that engineer's name, but I fondly recall the experience, and appreciate being reminded of it through this video. Thank you!

[@JeffGeerling]

That's amazing to hear! My Dad worked on KYKY for a few decades as it was owned by EZ Communications, then CBS Radio, then Entercom, now Audacy (probably another owner or two I don't remember)-that's one of the two stations we looked at in our Supertower video!

[@bobblum5973]

@Jeff Geerling I was actually wondering if it was him that I went with to see the facility. Don't recall when KSLQ changed to KYKY. Also, I've noticed there's a newer station in town using the KSLQ call letters! Downtown St. Louis has grown up so much, and I don't go down there that often. But I did recently drive through there and saw the Marquette Building hidden amongst some taller buildings. No more tower and antenna on top, though.

[@techobaz55]

I have not long retired from this work & I still miss it. After 55 years I have to find another hobby if I can, going to be hard to beat ! Excellent video guys, Cheers !

[@wernermoura7326]

Hello, I live in Brazil and I love these explanations of transmitters and tv stations, I subscribed to the channel to learn more about all this...knowledge is power. Big hug.

[@bretgreen5314]

Fantastic; brought back such memories for me. In past lives I was on the technical crews at TV stations KVIQ & KEET, then me and another guy (Ray Hansen of Midwest Tower) built the first FM radio tower in Moab Utah, and this was followed with a stint as an Earth-station microwave technician at Echostar. You could say I have RF running through my veins. Subscribed, and looking forward to perusing more of your videos. Thank you.

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

Don't worry! At half a million subs on the main channel, only a couple years before you yourself are providing TV for a million too!

[@vincentguttmann2231]

The first megawatt tower video already has half a million views on its own!

[@borntoclimb7116]

Greetings from Germany

[@birdpump]

Wow Jeff, thanks for all these transmitter videos. RF and broadcast is really fascinating and your dad does a really good job of explaining everything.

[@W6EL]

Excellent video. What an incredible site. Thank you for pulling back the curtain for us! 73 and good luck on your ham radio test!

[@wa4aos]

You are fortunate to have a father who is knowledgeable in so many areas and great at explaining what he knows. Good for you !!! Enjoy and love him while he's in your life. My dad has been gone for almost 28 years and I still miss him so much!!

[@MGSHM1]

Great. It’s total interesting to listen to your dad. 👍

[@bottlerat2318]

I enjoy watching these radio videos, and it's very cool that your dad works for these towers. I also put the EAS video you made on TV to show my family how it worked.

[@MendotaTech]

Love this! One thing about the bandpass filters. TV Stations are alotted 6 MHz of space. In that space, you are allotted some space as part of the "guard band", which I hear may be even more restricted in the future. But in short, there are more stringent requirements for TV... where FM allows you a total of 200 kHz of bandwidth, and in the area of other stations you may have spacing by at least the next frequency up and the next frequency down... TV stations have very little guard band spacing from the next channel number up and the next channel number down... So the bandpass filter literally chops any signals that fall outside that 6 MHz space. On a monthly basis, I used to run proofs that would determine the state of the signal such as out of band emissions, error rate before the Reed-Solomon filter, error rate after the Reed-Solomon filter, upper sideband levels, lower sideband levels, eye-chart data, etc.

[@coondogg729]

I don't know why this was recommended to me but I'm glad it was. I never realized what all was involved into just watching a tv station. great video

[@HeathenHammer123]

Honestly. One of the better more informative channels on YT

[@rono108]

Amazing technology. We need this despite the internet age, especially during emergencies. Thank you for a great video.

[@jimw7ry]

3:06 I just love the orange BNC cables HANGING from the tiny (looks like SMA) connectors on the MUX/Router and adapter cables putting un-due stress on them. We ALWAYS dressed the cables so this would not happen. A poor intermittent connection just waiting to happen!

[@bladder1010]

Wow, this is very interesting to see! Great behind-the-scenes tour!

[@ddr874]

Always enjoy these videos. Imagine the pressurized ridged coax in a moving platform and salt water environment. Also, cooling of the RCA 2041 transmitter tube was accomplished using two heat exchangers. Salt water from the fire main, cooling a closed fresh water loop, cooling a closed distilled water loop!!! :)

[@Lynchie9000]

Excellent job with the video. Very interesting how it all works getting the signals out

[@GeoffSeeley]

@10:17 back in the day I worked at a satellite earth station in Canada when some guys from NGK Tokyo were on site doing the first HDTV signal transmission tests. They had a metal crate with the biggest 16:9 CRT TV I ever seen (took 4 guys to lift it!) and I'll never forget when I saw an HD image (1080i) of a Japanese gold fish pond on it. It was like looking out a window! This was many years before HDTV hit the consumer market.

[@humphshumphs]

Absolutely brilliant to watch. I know you are family, but you work together so well. Can't wait for the next installment :)

[@iamtechnoman]

great videos, looking forward to more!

[@jimturpin]

Regarding the microwave dish pointing up the tower, generally that was for a transmitter going out, and there was a 45 degree reflector that bounced the signal to remote tower site and usually the receive part of that same system was a dish that was mounted up on the tower that faced the remote tower. Using that arrangement with a reflector cut down on the sidelobes and made for a tighter beam of energy as it cut across the countryside. The FCC banned them years ago to minimize interference with satellites when they passed over. I remember in the early 90's when Sony was making the rounds and showed up at the educational TV headquarters to demonstrate their HDTV stuff. The 1080p HDTV had a tube like the one in your video, and they had an HDTV video tape player that went along with it. I just remember how impressive it all was and I couldn't wait for HDTV to sweep the country. The TV cost $15,000 and the tape player was $35,000 according to the sales guys and was studio quality stuff obviously.

[@Crosbie85]

The type of stuff that will hopefully be viewed in the future by people researching the past. Thank you

[@211212112]

I can confirm a 36 inch model of that TV weighs more than I want to ever carry again. I sold it for $20 on the condition that I didn't have to load it. I told her to bring two decently strong men. After the two men loaded it up they said there was no way I had carried it myself. I offered to demonstrate, but it would cost them.

[@ad7iradio519]

Another great video. Very interesting. Thanks for doing these.

[@51nw]

i love all your videos. tons of useful information and ideas for us high power radio guys. keep it up :)

[@RookieLock]

As a radio amateur, this is totally amazing to me ! I thought we used some big coax.. That is huge!! You mentioned you were studying for you ham license ? Are you planning on doing a video once you've passed your test? That would be awesome ! Anyway, best of luck Jeff ! Thanks for taking us along for this amazing tour..

[@ryans6280]

Progressing my future ❌ Videos like this ✅

[@borntoclimb7116]

Very good video, what a nice tower.

[@achgreentree]

I remember when harry E. sold KCFM to partner with ksd AM in a trade for an am/fm else where [due to a FCC rule about media concentration] I bought the old stand by and fixed it up over a year and a day donating it to a non profit for mountain top use. when KMJM took over the debalver [sp] site and the multi station panel antenna came down it was some what of a marvel to see. fed by 2 coax for the top and bottom half's, Ed Bench had some initial phase steering problems to overcome. a story in its self

[@Jpk516]

That is hilarious! I never thought I’d see a video about this transmitter, I played golf there for close to a decade until they closed the back 9 that crossed next to it. Neat video!

[@BattlestarCanada]

Fun to see Nautel in the wild!

[@RyanGonTV]

Excellent video! Thank you for sharing this 🙂

[@Mitchvr32]

Thanks Jeff, another Great video. I'm sure Dave @EEVblog would be happy to see the reference to his content in the video too.

[@GeerlingEngineering]

I'll try to add a card in the video at the timestamp, though I find that only about 0.001% of clicks come from cards. People usually look in the description if they're interested enough. Sadly, cards seem to be more of a distraction than a useful feature most of the time :(

[@klystron22]

Hi There. So on that section about the waveguides. Those larger parts of the waveguides are actually combining switches, called "Magic Tee's" They are very low loss and likely were put in with the prior channel 35 digital transmitter. Also that larger TV transmitter was made only about 3 hours north of you in Quincy, Il. We have a similar model at my station in Boston.

[@radijoe]

Thanks! And I have enjoyed many transmitters from the factory in Quincy. Gates, then Harris and then GatesAir. Also BE was up there producing a lot of good AM FM products also!

[@alch3myau]

Wooo go EEVBlog!

[@xeronicus]

I had that television, I can confirm it does indeed weigh as much as a truck. Took 4 guys to move it when we moved.

[@JeffGeerling]

One of the few bits of tech where you go to lift... then you're like "are we sure it's not bolted down?" I can imagine a few people who bought it probably had to upgrade their media center/stand as it would crush most cheaper ones!

[@BradBo1140]

So much tech! Thanks. Are those copper tubes holding smaller wires? Amazing! That place is magic.

[@mudmucks]

Go and look at the earlier video :)

[@Superduty_59]

Interesting! I used to service a lot of generators at tower sites. I work for Caterpillar now and it's interesting to see your 3412 Cat generator with Asco ATS.

[@tekvax01]

I worked at a post house and we had a bunch of those Sony 1080i 59.97 and 1080p 23.94 CRT monitors! Yes, they were heavy and yup, they were expensive!

[@crazyfloridian]

I know that I am 2 weeks late but I had this question in mind since first video of the FM radio station tour, what is the emergency procedure when a natural disaster happens (i.e tornadoes and earthquakes) when operating at a broadcast tower?

[@kurtnowak8895]

Love this content

[@larrywebber2971]

Great video by both of you and a chance to see how broadcasting hardware and systems have evolved over th eyears.

[@Rob2]

When he said he had his own station on the tower, I expected it to be an amateur radio repeater or remote base station...

[@Geogak]

8:45, looks like that ball valve is being used to throttle the fluid flow. This is against best practices for using ball valves as it will be likely to cause increased wear on the valve and distribute debris from the valve throughout the system as the valve breaks down due to erosion from the passing fluid.

[@dcviper985]

I swear, that transmitter room looks like every military transmitter room I’ve ever been in.

[@MarkBohnhoffHassledHoff]

Thanks!

[@AdrianHiggins83]

Excellent video

[@Tech-NO-City]

I love these behind the seen videos. What ham radio repeaters do you guys use Ill jump on the air for a chat.

[@fishhaulergreatlakes8208]

Just think of the RF flying around in that room the old AM antenna with the copper coil that would make your hair stand on end if that was used for AM years ago.

[@dennishogenmiller4456]

Would like to see the old KXOK (AM) transmitter site.

[@ARBANAT]

What is inside this cooper pipes on 5:49? Liquid? Wires? Steam?

[@JeffGeerling]

The thicker ones have pressurized nitrogen, to keep out moisture (prevents arcing). The smaller pipes have water pumped through the transmitters for cooling.

[@1vester1]

LOL i still have a sony hd tv like that one. My mom done had 3 flat screens ... Old school still working :)

[@Jim.D]

Was any of the tv stations on ATSC-3 or was it all ATSC-1?

[@radijoe]

They are currently ATSC1. ATSC3 could make an interesting video and will be an interesting story in a few years to see how it is recieved among the public and what TV owners do with all the possible features.

[@Noname_2014]

Yes more radio stuff 👍

[@TVJAY]

The actual TV signal does not use all 77 mbps of the microwave link you referenced...it only uses 19.39 mbps. The rest of that bandwidth is probably used for remote control or general internet inside the building.

[@glbaker5595]

Per some reason that does not even resemble my siltronix radio and my 1500 watt box and my 4 element beams I thought I had a big station, now I back into weenie envious again he's got a bigger antenna that me

[@anon_y_mousse]

I wish your dad could work in Austin. The local NBC affiliate there, KXAN, has been using an alternate antenna because their main one has been offline for the past month or two. I guess it's not a problem for me anymore, since I've moved away, but I still care.

[@32_bits]

Another excellent video. Some questions, as there is only one feeder up the tower for the TV transmitter, is a redundant feeder and aerial system not needed? At a mechanical level how is the tower foundations supported and do the tower legs bolt on to a concrete foundation block?

[@fishhaulergreatlakes8208]

WEYI transmitters were in blastproof booths

[@coreybabcock2023]

Wish my dad could be like yours and let me work with him

[@98Whitewings]

I wonder if you could get ahold of WSIU to see how things are done there

[@shawnchartrandva3gfy720]

so you would hack the microwave part . as it would be easy to use there stream with a high power microwave transmitter .

[@GarfyUK]

I wonder if @RingwayManchester has seen this, he might know what the bow tie antennas are for

[@michaelterrell]

Analog TV used Vestigal sideband, not AM for the video. The last station I worked at was 5MW EIRP, on a 1700 foot tower. We used the standard 7GHz STL equipment from our Orlando and Leesburg, Florida studios. There was no line of sight from Leesburg to Orange City, so we linked from the original transmitter site to the new site. The station was originally a local access cable TV channel, so the existing 11 GHz CARS equipment was used to link the Leesburg site since the TV tower was very close to the CATV tower.

[@klystron22]

Vestigial Side Band is still amplitude modulation, just a different form of it. So technically he wasn't wrong.

[@michaelterrell]

@@klystron22 It does start start as AM, but it is not after the complex, low phase shift filtering since true AM uses both sidebands and the carrier. Have you ever aligned the filtering in a TV transmitter, or a Diplexer? The FCC would not agree with you, since they designate it separately from AM Broadcast. I'm a Retired TV engineer from the Analog days. I've worked from a flea powered 90 Watt AFRTS TV station with the antenna on a 100 foot tower, to a commercially licensed 5 MW EIRP on a 1700 foot tower. I was also the 'Engineer Of Record for a 1.3 MW EIRP UHF station, and built the transmitter site. If you had used AM for video, you would have wiped out the Aural signal of a lower adjacent channel. Cable TV would have had a much lower channel count for the same bandwidth, because of this so, technically it is a subset of true AM. The radiated power leaving the antenna started as 50 or 60 Hz three phase AC line voltage, but it isn't what is fed to the antenna. The Visual signal started and ended in the same format, so by your logic, it is just NTSC video leaving the antenna. Read the CFR part 47 on the FCC regulations.

[@cityandgirl]

I'm here after watching the movie Fall and I cannot believe people actually climb up these towers... 😳😦

[@retropalooza]

Laymen's terms 250watts broadcast distance roughly

[@alexanderpena129]

intresting how these towers actually work

[@SEGxEnjoy]

I had a very similar model Sony TV if not the same @ 10:57 lol, it was 1080P and I played Xbox on it.

[@nickhuwar7920]

Does that old rf power filter have the big copper bars in it. If I remember right they were about 6 bucks niches in diameter

[@SOU6900]

Is that XP or 9x on that computer at 1:03?

[@Lion_McLionhead]

That has the closest resemblance to the tower in Fall. Too bad no-one seems to know when it was built or what the oldest tower in the west is.

[@radioace318la]

and the mosfet semiconductor made this all possible. On the RF side of things.

[@kens.3729]

This is Very Impressive and it’s safe to say the large majority of the population has NO clue what is necessary to Broadcast TV and Radio Signals. Thank you. 👍🙏

[@alch3myau]

Whats in the box at 13:06 ???

[@rustyb78]

This stuff is so cool. I should have been a B. E.

[@Shocker99]

9:00 Those are not meters - they're variable frequency drives (VFDs)

[@FSR-v9c]

How come Dad does not complete his thoughts in the form of articulating what he thinks he is trying to say? If I did not already understand this data flow chart he would have confused the person watching who did not know, It's like he is stopping in mid-thought and then just slides into a new thought.

[@tstodgell]

800,000 watts of ERP?

[@sidbrun_]

What do you mean "in the West"? Is there an older one in the Eastern hemisphere?

[@gdog1443]

Incredible, who works all this shit out!

[@petefluffy7420]

NO, the tallest in the west (western Europe, the Americas, Africa is 1800 feet, the CN tower in Toronto

[@cascade5682]

Those bow ties were so the station could be "Puttin' On the Ritz". kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJy3dIWNns2DhNE

[@Sv5YpWTwd9otTA4So83f]

BLOODY OATH! There must be enough copper in those things to buy one, maybe even two Raspberry Pi's! also fantastic video btw

[@garethleitner9547]

Marconi would be speechless. I know I am.

[@XPFTP]

ill be over to put stacked 40s up... thanks.. hahhahhahah heck 75 dipole also lol

[@User0000000000000004]

PEEL THE PLASTIC OFF TEH DENON DISPLAY!!!!!!!!!!

[@GeerlingEngineering]

Ha! In the edit I was wondering if someone would notice that.

[@casondave]

OK, so who are you and who is your dad that you guys get to waltz around the station ? He works there?

[@666kty3]

Can a person get a tour? Im a electronics tech that specializes in vacuum tubes. Id love to see this place.

[@benjaminmosnier]

I love how your dad is getting more and more comfortable with the videos. I love the relationship you two have!

[@User0000000000000004]

I worked at Best Buy when rhat HD Trinitron TV was on sale. I believe there were two, a 34 and a 36. There were other TVs that were progressive scan but that was in fact the ONLY glass tube HDTV sold. I was one of only two people in the store who could lift it upbto the display shelf because at the edges there's 6 inches of leaded glass. I know this because I've seen one dropped on the ground and there really is 6" thick glass. It needs that because while the screen is flat on the front, the tube scans across a curved surface inside of it so the further off center you get, the thicker the glass. It's MASSIVE!

[@GeerlingEngineering]

Haha yeah... I think they've left it there mostly because they can't fit a forklift in there to haul it out!

[@eDoc2020]

I remember seeing what I thought was a Philips HDTV in the waiting room at the cable company. Maybe it was a Sony. More recently someone was giving away one of the Sony models on Craigslist.

[@throttlebottle5906]

it was pretty much a special giant glass lens bonded to the front of a CRT to "flatten" the face and picture out. I recall some of the big hype around them, but only ever seen two of them and I date back to the start of VHS and Microsoft(lol).

[@XMguy]

I always wanted one of CRT HD Wegas.

[@XMguy]

I thought they maxed out at 1080i? It's fast enough to rescan a progressive image?

[@firked]

Another fantastic video! Thank you so much to you and your dad for putting together such a great TV. I live in the UK and have always wondered how all these transmission towers etc. work and now I know :)

[@JCWren]

We used to have a couple repeaters at the 970 foot level on the 1000' Channel 11 tower in Decatur, GA about 25 years ago. That tower had an elevator, and it would take 11 minutes to go up and 9 minutes to come down. The elevator controls were really sketchy. They operated in the 27MHz band, and were prone to interference. More than once we'd engage the controller to go or down, and the sometimes the car would just stop. We always made sure to have a person on the ground near the manual controls to getting us going again. Besides servicing our repeaters, I'd take my good SLR camera with a telephoto lens up there. Also spent more than a few hours on roof of the Tower Place building and a few the other tall buildings.

[@bobblum5973]

Interference? On 27 MHz? What could possibly be on that band? 🤔 😁 Besides a ton of CB radios, I've also worked on garage door openers, radio-controlled cars, and even a dog training collar that all used 27 MHz signals. They all used the non-CB frequencies that CBers called "A" channels.

[@borntoclimb7116]

Interesting

[@basketballjones6782]

The elevator control loop is not on 27MHz. It's in the 54MHz band.

[@michaeldrainer2299]

Man…. Wish I would have known you guys were going to be shooting there Jeff.. I am Joe’s building mate and take care of that little LP TV in the small cell building for HSN/QVC. The the other Satellite dish delivers our main channel and a few subs. The rest are delivered over IP. Love the content. Keep it up!

[@JeffGeerling]

That's awesome! I know my Dad loves a clean install, and that's about as clean as it gets!

[@garypaulson5202]

Really enjoying this series on radio towers and the connected equipment. Congrats to your dad for having such a cool job

[@Nick_G7IZR]

19:12 Those bowties are "batwing" or "turnstyle" antennas stacked in an array. Usually older analogue TV, horizontally polarised.

[@GeerlingEngineering]

Yeah I know I asked my Dad about them-I believe they've been unused for a few years now, but not sure if they are just going to leave them until a new antenna upgrade someday or not.

[@Nick_G7IZR]

@@GeerlingEngineering I wouldn't climb it, or pay someone to climb it to remove something unused. I'd wait until it posed a hazard or until the space was needed. Talking of climbing, are you going to go up one sometime? You know, just for the clicks? Ah go on! 😁 BTW, these are my favourite series of videos. Keep it up...

[@kc0eks]

This was as awesome as the first tower. Thank you both and to all who allowed it without drama. Best tower documentary on KZbin x2