The tower reachable only by boat!!
This tower was built in 1984 to carry WNOL when it first went on the air. WNOL was originally owned by Quincy Jones Broadcasting. It was New Orleans' original FOX affiliate. I watched COPS, The Simpsons, Married With Children, Star Trek: The Next Generation (syndicated, not FOX, but carried by this station), and many other favorites for many seasons from the signal coming from this water-locked tower.
This tower is outside of the hurricane protection levee system. The equipment building was completely underwater during Hurricane Katrina's storm surge.
When Tribune had acquired both WGNO and WNOL, they consolidated those stations on one tower (the original WGNO tower, which we'll visit next), and put this one up for sale.
The current owner of this tower is KGLA (Mayavision).
Specs on this tower:
Height: 319.6 meters
Height above sea level: 319.6 meters
Location: 29° 58' 42.00" N Latitude 89° 56' 26.00" W Longitude
ASRN#: 1028295
Specs on KGLA:
Display Channel: 42
Digital Channel: 42
Affiliation: Telemundo
Owner: Mayavision
Power: 1000 kW
HAAT: 964' (294m)
AGL: 964' (294m)
Here's the base of the tower and equipment building. Note the DOCK so that the boat that you have to take to reach the tower can be docked when the tower is worked on!
Two guy anchors, rising up out of the swamp:
And the third:
And the top. KGLA is licensed to Hammond, LA. This is an example of how disconnected from reality a City of License can be. To serve Hammond, from 60 miles away, this tower has a highly directional antenna aimed straight at Hammond. KGLA is the Spanish Language Telemundo affiliate for this market. If I had to guess which city in the New Orleans DMA had the fewest residents that could speak Spanish, my first guess would probably be Hammond. Fortunately, this directional antenna is also aimed right across the areas that do have the most Spanish speakers: Orleans and Jefferson Parishes.
The WGNO/WNOL and WLAE towers are next.
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