The WWL-TV Tower

Next up is the WWL-TV tower.

Here are some specs on the tower:
Height: 319.4 meters
Height above sea level: 319.7 meters
Location: 29° 54' 22.00" N Latitude 90° 02' 22.00" W Longitude
ASRN#: 1220144

Specs on WWL:
Display Channel: 4
Digital Channel: 36
Affiliation: CBS
Owner: Belo
Power: 1000 kW
HAAT: 1020' (311m)
AGL: 1023' (312m)

WWL-TV (Belo) owns this tower. In 2001, as they began to build their digital facility, WWL constructed a completely new building and new tower on their site. The new facility is elevated and more hurricane hardened than the old. The old tower was removed.

First is a picture of the top of the tower. WWL-TV used a circular polarized antenna for analog channel 4. When they rebuilt their tower facility, they mounted their Channel 36 digital antenna above the analog antenna. So, now that it's dormant, the analog antenna just serves as part of the structure of the tower, holding the new digital antenna up.

This tower is in a residential area. Here's one of its guy wire anchors, rather close to residences. You ain't seen nothing yet, though. The WDSU tower and the WYES/WVUE towers, coming up later on the tour, have anchors MUCH closer to houses. The WYES/WVUE towers have guy wires running directly over the roofs of houses!

Here's the building at the base of the WWL tower. Note how it's built to withstand hurricane force winds and up on pilings for flood protection. This ruggedness proved unnecessary for Hurricane Katrina, as this area didn't flood. Some of the other stations weren't so lucky. I believe the old looking structure in front of the elevated building in the picture is the original transmitter building.

Finally, a longer shot looking up the tower.

Moving on to the WDSU tower.
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