I left Long Lines in 1971. Those days, they had Cross Bar. Step by step switching in the CO. You needed ear protection because of all the relays clicking. If memory serves me correctly, the wiring and equipment between each CO (central office) was called xrl or xlr. I could be wrong. The Bell System was an efficient running machine. Everything under it was spelled out in the Bell System Practices book. I worked in the Windowless Wonder LD 7 in New York City. To keep the equipment clean, the building had no windows. There were lights telling you what the weather was outside. It was an amazing company to work for. A shout out to a buddy, Bob Cardillo. He taught me many things and was a fine Craftsman. Thanks Bob.
Good to see this old gear RIP. I started in Western Electric in 1982 on central office systems. I never worked on microwave but remember implementing BSP on the T-Carrier networks. Great company to work for in those days, The equipment was world class and built to last. AT&T could afford to "over-engineer" everything in its monopoly days.
I was a T-Carrier tech worked inside C.O.'s and in the field. Helped install the first fiber optic lines in 1982. Also helped maintain underground CEV's that housed fiber optic repeaters and the 24v power plant.
As a Craftsman, you could go to school forever with AT&T Long Lines. I was scheduled to go to Buffalo NY for Backup Power Generation school. The training was second to none. A lot of new applicants were straight out of the Navy. The stories told at break and lunch were always interesting. Great guys to work with. Promotions were plentiful, especially if you were willing to relocate, and yes, Craft was all men. Women were clerical back then. Two weeks before departure, the big strike hit. I left Ma Bell. It was a long, costly strike for everyone. I never regretted leaving. Mother treated me well, but I couldn’t sit out a long strike. It turned out to be a wise choice to leave.
Those radios and multiplexers are newer than the 70's, look like last generation long lines form the 80's. However the farinon equip is from the old days, may not have been in use even at time of shut down. Those pressure transducers on the wall absolutely did maintain a certain pressure in the waveguide. The air was dehydrated before being pumped in, you want as little moisture as possible in the waveguide. The entire waveguide including the horn was pressurized. Have a look around other old sites for pictures of the earlier WE radios used to drive the horns, in the early days the equip was hybrid tube, technology progressed to solid state and beyond and it allowed for more signal bandwidth per path. Today microwave links are still used but the whole unit(transceiver) literally mounts on the tower/mast and the frequency is much higher than a few ghz like long lines was. Thanks for the look inside! Not many stations are untouched for the most part like this! Even spares and test equip still there!
This is good equipment built according to the old school. I remember the beginnings of mobile telephony in Poland, I operated SDH-1 radiolinks from NERA for low bands around 7GHz only we used flexible waveguides from Andrew company with ellipse cross section also with dehydration system. It was the end of the 90s then I also operated split PDH DMC Spectrum M, Spectrum1 and Spectrum 2 and XP4 radiolinks. Nowadays, where it is not possible to install fiber optics for various reasons, we build microwave links on 23GHz and E-Band on 80GHz. But I remember well those days and trips to the base station with a spectrum analyzer, power meter and frequency meter for inspection, check or repair. Back then you had to have engineering knowledge, now you just replace the ODU or IDU possibly a connector on the RG cable and that's all repairs.
I worked as a system test technician at Farinon Microwave in the 80s when they produced those 4GHz SS4000 radios for AT&T for their long haul microwave networks. It was a golden age for microwave transmission in the US.
a friend worked in the glass tower building in Downtown Los Angeles from 1960 to 1990. when they were designing the arco towers . ATT/ITT told them. they would need several floors in their buildings to put in a repeater for the microwaves going to Santa monica.. so they did a redesign and moved the buildings farther apart by 11 feet so the microwave signal could go between the gap.. my friend worked the graveyard shift.. calibrated the frequencies all night long along with other techs across the country.
Some of us ham radio guys still do. At the very beginning of the video, he shows black heat sink fins with a blue thing behind it. Those are Siemens traveling wave tubes, a somewhat exotic vacuum tube. Some of use those for ham radio microwave use to bounce signals off the moon and stuff. I'm absolutely drooling over those racks of gear.
Indeed AM & FM were not entirely killed by the Video Gods 🥳 890 WLS ~ Sitting in my Dads Old Ford Truck back in the 70s smoking my First few joints, trying to Grow up by being Cool, and Jamming on the AM radio by Dim lights. WE WERE HIGH and 16. GeezUs Talk about the GOOD TIMES. Ok, sorry, what about the Apocalypse 😂😂✌
Back when I was climbing towers for a living, I took several of these sites down. The techs would uncouple the waveguides at the building and the rest was in our wheelhouse. The best part was not only getting paid for taking the tower and gear down but all the copper was ours. We partied pretty hard on that copper money!
I visited many of these sites when I was a contractor for Emerson Power. I was there to engineer the removal of the battery plants in most cases. I wondered who was going to be responsible for all the copper waveguides.
I worked as a technician for BC Tel ( now Telus ) in British Columbia for 48 years. As a radio- microwave man, I was part of the transition from open wire carrier, to microwave radio in the 70's and 80's and then starting in the late 90's to fibre optics. Most all the heavy route radio sites in our area are pretty much shut down, but are still used for light route radio links to remote areas.
That tendency to retire stuff in-situ is real. I once walked through an AT&T rack and found a several U tall single hard disk drive, in 70s brown, still running. Highly doubt anything was actually using it, but nobody dared turn it off lest it break something they would then be responsible for fixing.
Thank you for sharing. I worked for AT&T for 45 years as a local loop engineer and planner. I was always interested in the Microwave gear used around the area and country. I engineered and maintained several small Microwave systems to provide service in and around the Mount Wilson CA area. I really miss being in these transmission huts and seeing the history. Thanks again!! 😊
I just retired from AT&T in 2023. Those are older 80s 2ghz microwave equipment using the old cornucopia antennas shown in your video. There are sites still out there with the old Western Electric TD2 microwave equipment from the 70's. I worked in Nevada and California. There is some older Alcatel 4000's and 6000's still in operation today. We just took an old Farinon out of Amboy Ca in 2016. Today all the M/W equipment is moving to newer digital packet radio technology able to carry ethernet instead of the legacy TDM traffic. I enjoyed my 27 years there.
In Lawrence Massachusetts there is an AT&T building with intact towers and and folded horn antennas easily visible from I495. As others have mentioned the DR-90 and DR-135 radio systems date from the 1980’s. Those digital radio systems replaced analog microwave systems which went through multiple generations starting in 1949. All these systems were manufactured at the Western Electric facility at nearby North Andover MA. I worked on the design of the DR-135 at Bell Labs collocated in North Andover. The equipment operated in one of the three licensed bands: 4 GHz, 6 GHz, 11GHz. The 4 and 6 GHz radio transmitters were solid state. The 11 GHz transmitters used traveling wave tubes.
There was an option for TWTs on the 6 GHz too. I changed quiet a few when working for MCI. Yes, MCI had Western Electric radios. It was part of the consent decree that WE would sell on the open market. Honestly, I preferred NEC.
@Joshie2256 NEC made fantastic transport equipment. When I retired from T in 2022, we still had some in service, from the 80's. My buddy/30+ year coworker installed a lot of it in our region. He said the talk that went around back then is if you wanted the best transport, buy NEC, but if you were dumb enough to buy a NEC switch, you deserved it!
Back in the 70s I worked for a company that made those data cards. I have no idea who bought them or what they did. I just worked on the assembly line and brought carts of them to the wave-soldering gizmo. After that they went to an oven to bake and then to a freezer to chill, several days each. This was to weed out faulty units, which got tested afterwards. If they passed the test they went to final assembly for faceplates and handles, then to shipping.
We had sites here in Ohio that were underground below the towers and were made to be bomb-proof, I was a fireman and so was trained on fighting a fire down in those underground AT&T towers and switch stations, I had an AT&T office that was 6 stories deep.
We had the same type of installation near my hometown in Iowa. Supposedly for the "real" reason longline existed: to provide communication in case of total nuclear war. I have heard this installation is now used as an emergency backup server farm for someone.
I got a tour of one of those facilities when I was in a college level communications circuits class. The building with all equipment was all underground, with just a small building visible at ground level, basically just the entryway, with strong entry doors to the underground floors, plus the towers with microwave horns. It was explained that the building was hardened to provide communications in event of nuclear war. The whole building was mounted on giant springs below the lowest underground floor (not in an earthquake zone, so this was to protect against bomb shock), and there were nuclear contamination wash showers in the building. I also recall the plumbing having rubber hose connections to survive bomb shock. The lowest level was all batteries. I don't remember as much detail about the microwave and telephone equipment, except that as I recall there was more than one floor of it, and I think there was some empty space for room for expansion. This was around 1978 to 1980. Somewhere, I still have the AT&T Long Lines pocket knife they gave me as a souvenir.
Unless torn down in the past 6 months, there is a microwave tower and windowless blockhouse like this next to state hwy 68 north of Wilmington Ohio. All surrounded by chain link fence and farmland. Never seen any vehicles people etc. driving by it weekly for decades. There is a road off the two lane hwy near to it called RAYCON. Unusual name there and I wondered if it was related. No sign of changes ever noticed for the decades I drove past. Now I have some idea what cool RF gear is inside, maybe.
I used to drive past that once or twice a month too, for a previous job, and wondered about it every time. Happy to hear it's still there, if nothing else.
Looks like it was still there in September 2023 - maps.app.goo.gl/d6NA8uKCY7cNPbQ78 It doesn't look like there are any cables or waveguides left going from the shack to the top of the tower. At least the tower is still serving to host some cellular or wifi equipment about 3/4 way up.
That Microwave is the Western Electric DR-90 or DR-135, I installed and maintained them in the 90's. There's alot of good old ger there. The test gear is interesting, Anritsu is good gear! The problem with radio is limited bandwidth. Fiber has so much more bandwidth. Thanks!
@@ToxiCom-777 They're not exactly toxic. They do weird stuff to the lenses in your eyes through heating and also testes if you have 'em. That requires some significant power densities so you'd have to try pretty hard. The non-thermal effects of microwaves are debatable. It's non ionizing cause the wavelength is too long (energy per photon) to have any direct effect on chemical bonds. Higher wavelengths (UV and up) cause cancer cause they can break bonds in DNA, microwaves cannot just like visible light cannot.
That's in beautiful shape, I hope a museum is able to take it when they finally decide to get rid of it! Especially with all the test equipment and spares, that's a very complete site and I'm just stunned that it's all still there.
In 1976 I went to work for a small automation company. The 2 founders were PhD EE guys who spent their graduate years at the antenna lab at Ohio State. The antennas used by AT&T for these applications were their design.
I spent a week up at the old Oat Mountain long lines building in Chatsworth CA. It originally was just a fire tower then T needed a long lines relay there so they went three stories underground and where the fire tower was then held the dishes.
A retired co worker was a long lines microwave engineer before working in television. There was also a full set of antennas on top of a building up north of me. The whole system always fascinated me.
Reminds me of the equipment racks in an old Douglas DC-8 airplane, often referred to as the "radio shrine" as the doors had see-thru plexiglass framed in metal, as well and mostly located in the rear walls of the cockpit.
Make sure to save that equipment and at bare minimum put it in a museum. Long lines are HISTORY. They achieved a historic milestone creating the network. That is a well preserved example. The original equipment would be nice as well.
I work in a NOC and for about 10 years our office was in our main CO. Also been in cell sites and other small COs. Always thought these buildings were really cool because of the history in them, lots of ancient stuff that's still running and abandoned. We still have a DMS100 and I don't see it going away any time soon either.
I'm too young for this era (40) but I work with a few older guys who worked for Bell or the RBOCs. I've always thought it's interesting that they were so reviled by the general public, but every guy I've known who worked for them have said those were some of the best years of their careers and they loved working for the Bell. One of them did exactly this - maintained microwave relay sites.
And oh yes thanks for the look inside in a good detailing of the equipment there aren't too many of these around left anymore with the equipment left inside the 10 that pristine condition
I remember these on top of a at&t building near where I grew up. Tower and buildings are there but those things are gone. Thanks for answering a question I had since I was a kid.
It would be a hoot to get a a single link of that old system up and running. Alas, all what you se in there will end up in a landfill with no way to intercept any of it.
I live close to Dahlonega-1, which was one of the larger hub sites. The site is now owned by American Radio. I have no idea if any equipment is still in the building, but I'd really like to tour it. I've been meaning to call them to see if they'd let me go in next time someone is up there.
@@fiberplz I'm not really surprised, but I am somewhat disappointed. I'd like to have seen the site when the horns were still operational and maintained.
@@JCWren ATT leased Dahlonega-1 back after it was sold in the early 2000s. They operated a digital route to Gainesville for a few years and it was turned down mid-2000s. It's been gutted and ruined since then.
That's the Gardena switching center. It's a tandem office still in use and switches all the telco traffic in the south bay area. It's also a long distance center as well. Some of those horns used to connect other tandem offices to this one, as well as send long distance traffic out over the microwave long lines system.
2 x T3 digital links 90Mbps typically over 30Mhz RF channel the wave guide size suggests 6Ghz band, Western Electric was changed to Lucent Technologies in 1994 so its mid to late 1980s tech
I always chuckle when I remember us dreaming of having access to a dedicated T1 and realize today that I have 2Gb connection for (inflation adjusted) likely less than what a dial-up connection cost at the time.
I remember doing the engineering for OC-3 (155Mbps) 6GHz relay links (and FCC licensing) for digital video using Harris P2P microwave gear in the early 2000s for multi-channel video distribution. We were moving from older 4.3GHz analog video STL P2P. Never happened as we found that we could do it via VPN on commercial DIA cheaper than having to maintain the hops we needed to get from LA to Santa Barbara. My, how the world has changed. My dad was part of the ESS5 software team at BTL (Naperville). I have a lot of interesting Western Electric and BTL books from the 60s-90s on the subject of analog telephony, transmission and switching systems. Sprint was built by the dint of running fiber along the same railroad ROW that AT&T Long Lines used to string copper on poles. To this day, that legacy Sprint fiber powers so much of the US comms...
You'd figure they'd remove the old equipment because they needed the space, rather than Retire In Place, but the newer technology equipment packs a lot more data carrying capacity into a much smaller space, so actually the equipment space needs in central offices and equipment shelters like this is getting SMALLER rather than larger., Central offices that were once three floors of a large building, absolutely jam packed with 70s era equipment, now do a lot more with just a small area on ONE floor carrying a few racks full of modern equipment.
If they pull it out, they have to dispose of it. I don't think I ever saw a old piece of telecom gear pulled out of any company I ever worked for. If there was old telecom end point equipment in a demarc closet, it didn't matter how old something was or how long it hadn't been used, if we ordered a new T1 or whatever, they would just mount a new box wherever they could and leave the old, unused cabinets mounted to the wall. Often the cards would still have power on them, even though they hadn't been used for years. The only time anything ever got removed was when I removed it. Given my experience, it's not surprising to see this facility full of gear. Probably the only reason they pulled the tower down was due to safety concerns of it collapsing due to age.
I remember visiting central offices in the 80's and watched the conversion to digital ESS switches. Amazing amount of shrinkage and noise reduction. Just think of how in less than 40 years the equivalent power and capacity of those massive computers is now available in a cheap handheld smartphone. I still am amazed how much cellular technology has revolutionized the world. Imagine someone coming out of prison after being incarcerated for last 20 years and using a cellphone for the first time. It may feel be like time traveling into distant future.
I thought these were all gone. I worked long lines in 1977 on some td2,th1, and ar6 microwave along with lmx2, lmx3 long haul carrier systems in Denver Colo. Also worked SCOTS control and surveillance system. Worked 100a switching as well. Worked no.1 step by step and CAMA for southwestern bell back in the 70's as well. These were the best jobs ever. Thank you for your video, cool stuff - still.
I worked in Columbia, sc, better known as Columbia’s #2. In the late 60s I spent a month in Fargo, ND at a retired microwave repeater station learning how to align and maintain the TD2 microwave repeater equipment. That was good equipment handling millions of long distance calls. I remember we had to add hundreds of circuits just before Mother’s Day to handle all the call volume.
4:44 - Anritsu! I worked for Anritsu in Morgan Hill, CA. Anritsu, a Japanese company, bought Wiltron during the mid-80s or early 90s which was an American company in Silicon Valley.
That’s awesome! Just wondering, what would that test unit be used for primarily? Would it aid in the directional placement of the towers horns? Faults in receivers and transmitters? Etc etc. I’m new to all this.
I retired two years ago 41 years in the CATV industry. I found this video interesting. I had to laugh when I saw the stains on the floor. I had a building like that.
This is cool. I'm drooling over some of the hardware in this. I'm actually looking for some of the traveling wave tubes in the DR6 and DR11 radios you showed, as well as some of the test gear you showed there. Based on some of the visual cues, I was able to nail down the site location in Central California. Thanks! This was quite enjoyable.
I believe microwave is still used (not AT&T) to connect to remote areas where building fibre is not easy (mountains). I also heard that microwaves links can transmit data faster than fibre and that little bit faster response can be used to make stock trades more profitable.
I know where there is a uWave repeater site for one of the stock exchanges, so you heard right. Lots of cameras. Not sure exactly which exchange. The reason to use a dedicated uWave system is to reduce the latency inherent in the internet, never mind the security aspect. Fibre and uWave systems propagate at roughly the same speed, it's the processing in between that slows it down. Much cheaper to install a uWave system than string miles and miles of fibre for a dedicated link. There's lots of uWave still in use for public safety, backhauling cell sites, private internet companies, etc, etc. Cheers.
It still is used by AT&T. In my area we have links going to places where we have no copper trunks to remote COs such as Oat Mountain in Chatsworth,CA and from Pasadena Green C.O up to Mt Wilson area for everythijg up Angeles Forest Hwy. These are T1s that feed D4 banks for dialtones
Absolutely amazing in that the site has NOT been vandalized and totally stripped and what was left, destroyed. At least one of these sites should be put on the National Historic register.
I love the fact that they had circuits that could handle all those calls and everything back when they still were using vacuum tubes when the system first came out and was put in operation so that's pretty cool 🙂 I went on a couple of Urban explorer trips and seen some of these towers I would love to be able to rent one for use with some of my hobbies working with like off-grid power supplies and solar panels being in a building that had such cool history like this that would be totally awesome but I don't know who I would contact to find out about it I also wouldn't mind making use of one of the old l3 l4 underground power feed stations some people use them as a bug out bunker but I would just love using it for a cool workspace 😎
"Old school" makes me laugh 😅 I used to work on that stuff ! Retired in 1998 after most were shut down and fiber optics had by then taken over. Ah, the good ol' days...
There's one of these concrete towers near where I grew up, and in the 1960's I asked my Dad what it was, and he said it was for telephones. Dad was a bright fellow. I was hoping to see huge vacuum tubes, like radio / TV transmitters once used.
Fiber and coax can be broken or cut. This stuff could back it up in a serious crisis unless maintenance is considered too much for a faint possibility.
Today, we also have satellites for backup (which can also be jammed, or possibly even attacked if war capabilities expand to include attacking satellites).
I live in Tucson. There is a tower downtown just like the one shown but with a couple of more “antennas” on it. The tower is at least 50 years old. I have been living here since August 1972 and have seen the tower my whole life. I don’t know if the tower is still functioning or not. It may have been shut down. I have no way of knowing. This video is the first time seeing how an array like that operates.
A video on how the old A-B copper cables worked would be interesting. I was a cable locate in the 90s.I remember seeing abandoned A-B long distance copper cables outside of Salt Lake and other places.
Still have a couple of those towers in my area. One of them has had most of the microwave receivers removed from the tower, but there are still a few of them up there.
Thanks for the inside look. We still have one of these towers standing with 6 or 7 ears on it. They probably use it for cell now but the old ears are so cold war cool looking.
Interesting fact - American Tower bought most if not all of these sites from AT&T in the early 2000’s for a song. They wanted the tower infrastructure for back haul .
Loved seeing those as a kid, we still have plenty still standing in our area, still a sight to see. For years the perfectly round ones we just use to call them big bass drums and satellites , it wasn’t until a few years ago I found out they were called microwaves and longline antennas. Also not far from me one has a nuclear fallout shelter
The first machine shop I worked at after high school in 85 made those wave-guide assemblies. The shop is still in business. I am sure you area aware that wave-guides are used in a lot of other applications. Such as Satellites, and Aircraft.
There's one of these AT&T installations in my city. I've seen it for decades and never knew what it really was. I always thought it was for radio broadcasting.
There is still one of these long line towers still up. in Bowdin, Maine. The microwave part has been decommissioned but I believe the tower is used for cellular now. Its cool to see the original microwave antennas intact tho.
The dehydrator system and the alarm monitor alarmed the alarm center if the pressor dropped or the Dehydrator had high moisture or failed to dry one of the desiccant tanks. the gray alarm units on the wall connected to the waveguide were to monitor each direction of either TX or RX waveguide for a drop in the normal pressures of 2 inches of water pressure that also help to then locate the leak in the system and then repair the leak. there o ring on the wave guide and the monitor point has a glass window so the microwave can pass but the air pressure in on the outside wave guide.
I do D/C power so I work at a lot of small independent telephone companies which are museums and the hydro plants that the power companies own are full of awesome tools from the early 1900's
This looks like a site out in Lake Co California. But then again a lot of these sites were very similar in construction. Love seeing these old LL sites and have been in a few that have been repurposed into Public Safety, Cell, LMR and WISP sites.
The area that I live in had several AT&T microwave towers with the huge Cone antennas, they wreaked havoc on TVRO, SMATV, & C band VSAT terminals. I built quite a niche business selling notch filters and specialty antenna systems. I was quite successful in achieving 90+% transponder functionality, even on VideoCipher encrypted channels. Many clients were skeptical as they had other techs come in making promises and delivering a terribly low % of functionality. I worked with Microwave Filter from New York and Patriot antennas, I guaranteed at least 90% channel restoration, which left the client confident that they wouldn't be stuck with useless hardware.
I put dishes in the Indiana area. There was one link that was a PITA to deal with. Few customers was good with the notch filter. One customer had to cancel the deal as it was too much and could not get anything from the sats.
@techwolflupindo That's how most all of my clients were on my first visit to determine feasibility. One was on a hilltop and looked right down the boresight of an AT& T tower that was about 6 miles out. That job required not only filtration and a parabola with a deep f/d ratio, but I also had to add microwave absorbant material all the way around the edge of the parabola and a Mitsubishi TI Fighter feedhorn..
My Dad was a line trouble shooter for At&T out of Seattle in the 70’s to mid 80’s I am sure this is like some of the equipment he used to work on like Tone Terminal Unit or TTU is what he called it
Interesting that they use the term "retired in place". We used the same term in law enforcement for cops who were just laying low until they could either retire or move on to something else.
I love old tech and think it should be preserved, but I can't help but wonder how many grams of gold are present on-site in inert card-edges and coaxial connectors. Not enough for Ma' Bell to care about, but I'm sure it's not insignificant.
I remember dealing with these as they interfered with C-Band satellite dishes. Today, C-Band satellite has been shutdown and now reallacted to cellular use. Would be great to reporpus two towers as a 5GHz wifi link. As the wave tubes can handle anything higher then 3GHz.
OK. I've been fascinated by these LL sites for a few years now, mostly because I love old tech and the secret places regular folks never get to see. If you don't mind me asking, which transceiver site is this? We have one in downtown Oakland (CA) just sitting on the roof of, I think the Wells Fargo building? But what I really want to know is what's in the bunkers. All of these sites were hardened in case of nuclear war. Also, I didn't know you could just pipe microwaves places. I always thought the magnetron lived in the dish. From what I've learned here it makes me want whole house microwave outlets, you know, like the whole house vacuum systems? Want a snack in you bedroom? Grab something outta the cooler drawer and toss it in the zapper node! Man, I miss back when we used to live in the future...
Your should ask if you can turn some of the transmitters into ham gear to work the SHF microwave frequencies up there lol. Imagine the output you could get from one of those microwave transmitters.
They were very low power, on the order of a couple watts output. However, coupled with the gain of the cornucopia antennas, it was effectively multiplied sometimes hundred of times.
This is very interesting. It's amazing how things used to work and how technological changes have made them obsolete. A site like this could be repurposed for ham radio use, especially during emergencies, although it would be better if it still had the towers to mount antennas on.
That was good stuff back in the day. I worked for Motorola for 30 years, I have been to hundreds of different sites and seen this stuff.. I hate to see it get RIP
The Long Lines division was actually for voice and data transmission for the Department of Defense. It was one of the DoD's early warning, command and control communications systems for nuclear defense. It was used for civilian video, data, and voice when the DoD use was low.
I left Long Lines in 1971. Those days, they had Cross Bar. Step by step switching in the CO. You needed ear protection because of all the relays clicking. If memory serves me correctly, the wiring and equipment between each CO (central office) was called xrl or xlr. I could be wrong. The Bell System was an efficient running machine. Everything under it was spelled out in the Bell System Practices book. I worked in the Windowless Wonder LD 7 in New York City. To keep the equipment clean, the building had no windows. There were lights telling you what the weather was outside. It was an amazing company to work for. A shout out to a buddy, Bob Cardillo. He taught me many things and was a fine Craftsman. Thanks Bob.
Good to see this old gear RIP. I started in Western Electric in 1982 on central office systems. I never worked on microwave but remember implementing BSP on the T-Carrier networks. Great company to work for in those days, The equipment was world class and built to last. AT&T could afford to "over-engineer" everything in its monopoly days.
ha i removed or RIP'd that stuff n put in 5E
I was a T-Carrier tech worked inside C.O.'s and in the field.
Helped install the first fiber optic lines in 1982. Also helped maintain underground CEV's that housed fiber optic repeaters and the 24v power plant.
Were you there during the big fire? I watched them refurbish the whole place, I don't know how all those pairs are kept up with.
As a Craftsman, you could go to school forever with AT&T Long Lines. I was scheduled to go to Buffalo NY for Backup Power Generation school. The training was second to none. A lot of new applicants were straight out of the Navy. The stories told at break and lunch were always interesting. Great guys to work with. Promotions were plentiful, especially if you were willing to relocate, and yes, Craft was all men. Women were clerical back then. Two weeks before departure, the big strike hit. I left Ma Bell. It was a long, costly strike for everyone. I never regretted leaving. Mother treated me well, but I couldn’t sit out a long strike. It turned out to be a wise choice to leave.
Those radios and multiplexers are newer than the 70's, look like last generation long lines form the 80's. However the farinon equip is from the old days, may not have been in use even at time of shut down. Those pressure transducers on the wall absolutely did maintain a certain pressure in the waveguide. The air was dehydrated before being pumped in, you want as little moisture as possible in the waveguide. The entire waveguide including the horn was pressurized. Have a look around other old sites for pictures of the earlier WE radios used to drive the horns, in the early days the equip was hybrid tube, technology progressed to solid state and beyond and it allowed for more signal bandwidth per path. Today microwave links are still used but the whole unit(transceiver) literally mounts on the tower/mast and the frequency is much higher than a few ghz like long lines was. Thanks for the look inside! Not many stations are untouched for the most part like this! Even spares and test equip still there!
Found some references to DR6-135 radios via a Google search, showing some sites had those installed in 1988 and were decommissioned in 1999.
Based only upon the style and colors of the equipment, I was guessing 80's as well.
The Folgers was definitely ‘80s. All my relatives had a jar like that!
Time 103
Dave, stop, don't do that
Daisy, Daisy,
Give me your answer, do!
This is good equipment built according to the old school. I remember the beginnings of mobile telephony in Poland, I operated SDH-1 radiolinks from NERA for low bands around 7GHz only we used flexible waveguides from Andrew company with ellipse cross section also with dehydration system. It was the end of the 90s then I also operated split PDH DMC Spectrum M, Spectrum1 and Spectrum 2 and XP4 radiolinks. Nowadays, where it is not possible to install fiber optics for various reasons, we build microwave links on 23GHz and E-Band on 80GHz. But I remember well those days and trips to the base station with a spectrum analyzer, power meter and frequency meter for inspection, check or repair. Back then you had to have engineering knowledge, now you just replace the ODU or IDU possibly a connector on the RG cable and that's all repairs.
The design language, the fonts, the buttons, the dials. Oh my, the golden age of industrial design 😍
I worked as a system test technician at Farinon Microwave in the 80s when they produced those 4GHz SS4000 radios for AT&T for their long haul microwave networks. It was a golden age for microwave transmission in the US.
a friend worked in the glass tower building in Downtown Los Angeles from 1960 to 1990. when they were designing the arco towers . ATT/ITT told them. they would need several floors in their buildings to put in a repeater for the microwaves going to Santa monica.. so they did a redesign and moved the buildings farther apart by 11 feet so the microwave signal could go between the gap.. my friend worked the graveyard shift.. calibrated the frequencies all night long along with other techs across the country.
Interesting. Been in L.A. a long time and never heard that one. I had a friend that did work in One Wilshire and had interesting stories about that.
The Madison Complex. Really 3 buildings connected together. It's on the LA Conservacy list with the MW tower to remain.
someone will be using this old equipment when the zombie apocalypse goes down...
I was waiting and thinking the same with this comment, well done
Some of us ham radio guys still do. At the very beginning of the video, he shows black heat sink fins with a blue thing behind it. Those are Siemens traveling wave tubes, a somewhat exotic vacuum tube. Some of use those for ham radio microwave use to bounce signals off the moon and stuff. I'm absolutely drooling over those racks of gear.
Indeed AM & FM were not entirely killed by the Video Gods 🥳 890 WLS ~ Sitting in my Dads Old Ford Truck back in the 70s smoking my First few joints, trying to Grow up by being Cool, and Jamming on the AM radio by Dim lights. WE WERE HIGH and 16. GeezUs Talk about the GOOD TIMES. Ok, sorry, what about the Apocalypse 😂😂✌
@@detectivedave Same here:) But in Dad's 73 LTD.
Back when I was climbing towers for a living, I took several of these sites down. The techs would uncouple the waveguides at the building and the rest was in our wheelhouse. The best part was not only getting paid for taking the tower and gear down but all the copper was ours. We partied pretty hard on that copper money!
Can you imagine at todays copper prices???
@@MatthewK863 ive visited a lot of sites that have been pillaged by crack heads for copper, makes me sad. Most of the sites are otherwise untouched.
I visited many of these sites when I was a contractor for Emerson Power. I was there to engineer the removal of the battery plants in most cases. I wondered who was going to be responsible for all the copper waveguides.
I worked as a technician for BC Tel ( now Telus ) in British Columbia for 48 years. As a radio- microwave man, I was part of the transition from open wire carrier, to microwave radio in the 70's and 80's and then starting in the late 90's to fibre optics. Most all the heavy route radio sites in our area are pretty much shut down, but are still used for light route radio links to remote areas.
That tendency to retire stuff in-situ is real. I once walked through an AT&T rack and found a several U tall single hard disk drive, in 70s brown, still running. Highly doubt anything was actually using it, but nobody dared turn it off lest it break something they would then be responsible for fixing.
Correct, sometimes an entire bay has to stay powered due to alarms or maybe one customer still on that circuit.
Thank you for sharing. I worked for AT&T for 45 years as a local loop engineer and planner. I was always interested in the Microwave gear used around the area and country. I engineered and maintained several small Microwave systems to provide service in and around the Mount Wilson CA area. I really miss being in these transmission huts and seeing the history. Thanks again!! 😊
I just retired from AT&T in 2023. Those are older 80s 2ghz microwave equipment using the old cornucopia antennas shown in your video. There are sites still out there with the old Western Electric TD2 microwave equipment from the 70's. I worked in Nevada and California. There is some older Alcatel 4000's and 6000's still in operation today. We just took an old Farinon out of Amboy Ca in 2016. Today all the M/W equipment is moving to newer digital packet radio technology able to carry ethernet instead of the legacy TDM traffic. I enjoyed my 27 years there.
In Lawrence Massachusetts there is an AT&T building with intact towers and and folded horn antennas easily visible from I495. As others have mentioned the DR-90 and DR-135 radio systems date from the 1980’s. Those digital radio systems replaced analog microwave systems which went through multiple generations starting in 1949. All these systems were manufactured at the Western Electric facility at nearby North Andover MA. I worked on the design of the DR-135 at Bell Labs collocated in North Andover. The equipment operated in one of the three licensed bands: 4 GHz, 6 GHz, 11GHz. The 4 and 6 GHz radio transmitters were solid state. The 11 GHz transmitters used traveling wave tubes.
There was an option for TWTs on the 6 GHz too. I changed quiet a few when working for MCI. Yes, MCI had Western Electric radios. It was part of the consent decree that WE would sell on the open market. Honestly, I preferred NEC.
@Joshie2256 NEC made fantastic transport equipment. When I retired from T in 2022, we still had some in service, from the 80's. My buddy/30+ year coworker installed a lot of it in our region. He said the talk that went around back then is if you wanted the best transport, buy NEC, but if you were dumb enough to buy a NEC switch, you deserved it!
That North Andover facility is so huge it is hard to describe.
Donate some of this equipment to the Connections Museum!
I second this
Back in the 70s I worked for a company that made those data cards. I have no idea who bought them or what they did. I just worked on the assembly line and brought carts of them to the wave-soldering gizmo. After that they went to an oven to bake and then to a freezer to chill, several days each. This was to weed out faulty units, which got tested afterwards. If they passed the test they went to final assembly for faceplates and handles, then to shipping.
We had sites here in Ohio that were underground below the towers and were made to be bomb-proof, I was a fireman and so was trained on fighting a fire down in those underground AT&T towers and switch stations, I had an AT&T office that was 6 stories deep.
We had the same type of installation near my hometown in Iowa. Supposedly for the "real" reason longline existed: to provide communication in case of total nuclear war. I have heard this installation is now used as an emergency backup server farm for someone.
Probably gates or the like for their terror servers:(
I got a tour of one of those facilities when I was in a college level communications circuits class. The building with all equipment was all underground, with just a small building visible at ground level, basically just the entryway, with strong entry doors to the underground floors, plus the towers with microwave horns. It was explained that the building was hardened to provide communications in event of nuclear war. The whole building was mounted on giant springs below the lowest underground floor (not in an earthquake zone, so this was to protect against bomb shock), and there were nuclear contamination wash showers in the building. I also recall the plumbing having rubber hose connections to survive bomb shock. The lowest level was all batteries. I don't remember as much detail about the microwave and telephone equipment, except that as I recall there was more than one floor of it, and I think there was some empty space for room for expansion. This was around 1978 to 1980. Somewhere, I still have the AT&T Long Lines pocket knife they gave me as a souvenir.
I know a guy who got one of those dryers at a surplus auction. He uses it for his spray guns in an automotive paint booth.
Unless torn down in the past 6 months, there is a microwave tower and windowless blockhouse like this next to state hwy 68 north of Wilmington Ohio. All surrounded by chain link fence and farmland. Never seen any vehicles people etc. driving by it weekly for decades. There is a road off the two lane hwy near to it called RAYCON. Unusual name there and I wondered if it was related. No sign of changes ever noticed for the decades I drove past. Now I have some idea what cool RF gear is inside, maybe.
I used to drive past that once or twice a month too, for a previous job, and wondered about it every time. Happy to hear it's still there, if nothing else.
One in Cloverdale, IN as well. See it driving everyday.
Looks like it was still there in September 2023 - maps.app.goo.gl/d6NA8uKCY7cNPbQ78
It doesn't look like there are any cables or waveguides left going from the shack to the top of the tower. At least the tower is still serving to host some cellular or wifi equipment about 3/4 way up.
That Microwave is the Western Electric DR-90 or DR-135, I installed and maintained them in the 90's. There's alot of good old ger there. The test gear is interesting, Anritsu is good gear! The problem with radio is limited bandwidth. Fiber has so much more bandwidth. Thanks!
True. But the RF bandwidth works with significantly less trench. 8-).
Since microwaves are bio-toxic, it's probably good they were an interim solution.
@@ToxiCom-777 They're not exactly toxic. They do weird stuff to the lenses in your eyes through heating and also testes if you have 'em. That requires some significant power densities so you'd have to try pretty hard. The non-thermal effects of microwaves are debatable. It's non ionizing cause the wavelength is too long (energy per photon) to have any direct effect on chemical bonds. Higher wavelengths (UV and up) cause cancer cause they can break bonds in DNA, microwaves cannot just like visible light cannot.
@@ToxiCom-777 Are you ever clueless.....
@@keitha.9788 DR MAGDA HAVAS . DR DEVRA DAVIS . BARRY TROWER . Let them know!
That's in beautiful shape, I hope a museum is able to take it when they finally decide to get rid of it! Especially with all the test equipment and spares, that's a very complete site and I'm just stunned that it's all still there.
That test equipment can still be used to test the microwave systems that are used today.
Anritsu still in Morgan Hill, CA I believe.
Tower 1 and tower 2 in the air dryer refer to the two desiccant chambers. One will be on-line drying air while the other is heated and regenerated.
In 1976 I went to work for a small automation company. The 2 founders were PhD EE guys who spent their graduate years at the antenna lab at Ohio State. The antennas used by AT&T for these applications were their design.
I spent a week up at the old Oat Mountain long lines building in Chatsworth CA. It originally was just a fire tower then T needed a long lines relay there so they went three stories underground and where the fire tower was then held the dishes.
A retired co worker was a long lines microwave engineer before working in television.
There was also a full set of antennas on top of a building up north of me.
The whole system always fascinated me.
Reminds me of the equipment racks in an old Douglas DC-8 airplane, often referred to as the "radio shrine" as the doors had see-thru plexiglass framed in metal, as well and mostly located in the rear walls of the cockpit.
Make sure to save that equipment and at bare minimum put it in a museum.
Long lines are HISTORY. They achieved a historic milestone creating the network. That is a well preserved example. The original equipment would be nice as well.
I work in a NOC and for about 10 years our office was in our main CO. Also been in cell sites and other small COs. Always thought these buildings were really cool because of the history in them, lots of ancient stuff that's still running and abandoned. We still have a DMS100 and I don't see it going away any time soon either.
I worked at Northern Telecom from 80 to 2008 and supported DMS100 and DMS10 outages. Good to see the DMS brand mentioned.
I'm too young for this era (40) but I work with a few older guys who worked for Bell or the RBOCs. I've always thought it's interesting that they were so reviled by the general public, but every guy I've known who worked for them have said those were some of the best years of their careers and they loved working for the Bell. One of them did exactly this - maintained microwave relay sites.
One guy I worked with his dad worked for Bell also as did he and his job was to clear weeds from the towers.
Around here we have some towers (some with the horns still on them) but the equipment is mostly gone. Cool to see what was on those racks!
And oh yes thanks for the look inside in a good detailing of the equipment there aren't too many of these around left anymore with the equipment left inside the 10 that pristine condition
Thanks for the fine tour! Would have been something to see all that in service!
I remember these on top of a at&t building near where I grew up. Tower and buildings are there but those things are gone. Thanks for answering a question I had since I was a kid.
It would be a hoot to get a a single link of that old system up and running. Alas, all what you se in there will end up in a landfill with no way to intercept any of it.
I live close to Dahlonega-1, which was one of the larger hub sites. The site is now owned by American Radio. I have no idea if any equipment is still in the building, but I'd really like to tour it. I've been meaning to call them to see if they'd let me go in next time someone is up there.
I live near Dahlonega 1 also. It’s gutted and in bad shape I’m afraid.
@@fiberplz I'm not really surprised, but I am somewhat disappointed. I'd like to have seen the site when the horns were still operational and maintained.
@@JCWren ATT leased Dahlonega-1 back after it was sold in the early 2000s. They operated a digital route to Gainesville for a few years and it was turned down mid-2000s. It's been gutted and ruined since then.
I used to drive by one of these sites in Gardena, California, off Artesia Blvd in the 70's- 80's. Always wondered what it was for.
That's the Gardena switching center. It's a tandem office still in use and switches all the telco traffic in the south bay area. It's also a long distance center as well. Some of those horns used to connect other tandem offices to this one, as well as send long distance traffic out over the microwave long lines system.
2 x T3 digital links 90Mbps typically over 30Mhz RF channel the wave guide size suggests 6Ghz band, Western Electric was changed to Lucent Technologies in 1994 so its mid to late 1980s tech
I always chuckle when I remember us dreaming of having access to a dedicated T1 and realize today that I have 2Gb connection for (inflation adjusted) likely less than what a dial-up connection cost at the time.
I remember doing the engineering for OC-3 (155Mbps) 6GHz relay links (and FCC licensing) for digital video using Harris P2P microwave gear in the early 2000s for multi-channel video distribution. We were moving from older 4.3GHz analog video STL P2P. Never happened as we found that we could do it via VPN on commercial DIA cheaper than having to maintain the hops we needed to get from LA to Santa Barbara. My, how the world has changed.
My dad was part of the ESS5 software team at BTL (Naperville). I have a lot of interesting Western Electric and BTL books from the 60s-90s on the subject of analog telephony, transmission and switching systems. Sprint was built by the dint of running fiber along the same railroad ROW that AT&T Long Lines used to string copper on poles. To this day, that legacy Sprint fiber powers so much of the US comms...
You'd figure they'd remove the old equipment because they needed the space, rather than Retire In Place, but the newer technology equipment packs a lot more data carrying capacity into a much smaller space, so actually the equipment space needs in central offices and equipment shelters like this is getting SMALLER rather than larger., Central offices that were once three floors of a large building, absolutely jam packed with 70s era equipment, now do a lot more with just a small area on ONE floor carrying a few racks full of modern equipment.
If they pull it out, they have to dispose of it. I don't think I ever saw a old piece of telecom gear pulled out of any company I ever worked for. If there was old telecom end point equipment in a demarc closet, it didn't matter how old something was or how long it hadn't been used, if we ordered a new T1 or whatever, they would just mount a new box wherever they could and leave the old, unused cabinets mounted to the wall. Often the cards would still have power on them, even though they hadn't been used for years. The only time anything ever got removed was when I removed it. Given my experience, it's not surprising to see this facility full of gear. Probably the only reason they pulled the tower down was due to safety concerns of it collapsing due to age.
I remember visiting central offices in the 80's and watched the conversion to digital ESS switches. Amazing amount of shrinkage and noise reduction. Just think of how in less than 40 years the equivalent power and capacity of those massive computers is now available in a cheap handheld smartphone. I still am amazed how much cellular technology has revolutionized the world. Imagine someone coming out of prison after being incarcerated for last 20 years and using a cellphone for the first time. It may feel be like time traveling into distant future.
I thought these were all gone.
I worked long lines in 1977 on some td2,th1, and ar6 microwave along with lmx2, lmx3 long haul carrier systems in Denver Colo. Also worked SCOTS control and surveillance system. Worked 100a switching as well. Worked no.1 step by step and CAMA for southwestern bell back in the 70's as well. These were the best jobs ever. Thank you for your video, cool stuff - still.
I worked in Columbia, sc, better known as Columbia’s #2. In the late 60s I spent a month in Fargo, ND at a retired microwave repeater station learning how to align and maintain the TD2 microwave repeater equipment. That was good equipment handling millions of long distance calls. I remember we had to add hundreds of circuits just before Mother’s Day to handle all the call volume.
@billmcroberts6566 I remember that too. Lmx2 carrier systems would be overloaded from the 4a switches on big holidays, we were busy indeed.
4:44 - Anritsu! I worked for Anritsu in Morgan Hill, CA. Anritsu, a Japanese company, bought Wiltron during the mid-80s or early 90s which was an American company in Silicon Valley.
That’s awesome! Just wondering, what would that test unit be used for primarily? Would it aid in the directional placement of the towers horns? Faults in receivers and transmitters? Etc etc. I’m new to all this.
We have some Wiltron and Anritsu DS1 test heads in our local CO's.
I retired two years ago 41 years in the CATV industry. I found this video interesting. I had to laugh when I saw the stains on the floor. I had a building like that.
This is cool. I'm drooling over some of the hardware in this. I'm actually looking for some of the traveling wave tubes in the DR6 and DR11 radios you showed, as well as some of the test gear you showed there. Based on some of the visual cues, I was able to nail down the site location in Central California. Thanks! This was quite enjoyable.
I believe microwave is still used (not AT&T) to connect to remote areas where building fibre is not easy (mountains). I also heard that microwaves links can transmit data faster than fibre and that little bit faster response can be used to make stock trades more profitable.
I know where there is a uWave repeater site for one of the stock exchanges, so you heard right. Lots of cameras. Not sure exactly which exchange. The reason to use a dedicated uWave system is to reduce the latency inherent in the internet, never mind the security aspect. Fibre and uWave systems propagate at roughly the same speed, it's the processing in between that slows it down. Much cheaper to install a uWave system than string miles and miles of fibre for a dedicated link.
There's lots of uWave still in use for public safety, backhauling cell sites, private internet companies, etc, etc.
Cheers.
It still is used by AT&T. In my area we have links going to places where we have no copper trunks to remote COs such as Oat Mountain in Chatsworth,CA and from Pasadena Green C.O up to Mt Wilson area for everythijg up Angeles Forest Hwy. These are T1s that feed D4 banks for dialtones
Curious Mark would love to get his hands on this setup.
The blackest of black arts in analog equipment
SO COOL. Thanks so much for sharing this, amazing!
Absolutely amazing in that the site has NOT been vandalized and totally stripped and what was left, destroyed.
At least one of these sites should be put on the National Historic register.
I love the fact that they had circuits that could handle all those calls and everything back when they still were using vacuum tubes when the system first came out and was put in operation so that's pretty cool 🙂
I went on a couple of Urban explorer trips and seen some of these towers I would love to be able to rent one for use with some of my hobbies working with like off-grid power supplies and solar panels being in a building that had such cool history like this that would be totally awesome but I don't know who I would contact to find out about it
I also wouldn't mind making use of one of the old l3 l4 underground power feed stations some people use them as a bug out bunker but I would just love using it for a cool workspace 😎
great video love the old building I see a lot good parts for projects and repair !
If you look hard enough, you can find these for sale. They used to be spaced about 50 miles apart in a lot of directions.
"Old school" makes me laugh 😅 I used to work on that stuff ! Retired in 1998 after most were shut down and fiber optics had by then taken over. Ah, the good ol' days...
Awesome video , thanks for sharing this informative video 👍🏽
There's one of these concrete towers near where I grew up, and in the 1960's I asked my Dad what it was, and he said it was for telephones. Dad was a bright fellow. I was hoping to see huge vacuum tubes, like radio / TV transmitters once used.
Fiber and coax can be broken or cut. This stuff could back it up in a serious crisis unless maintenance is considered too much for a faint possibility.
And microwave can be easily jammed or damaged by high power intrusion.
Today, we also have satellites for backup (which can also be jammed, or possibly even attacked if war capabilities expand to include attacking satellites).
@@Kinann captain midnight.....
I live in Tucson. There is a tower downtown just like the one shown but with a couple of more “antennas” on it. The tower is at least 50 years old. I have been living here since August 1972 and have seen the tower my whole life. I don’t know if the tower is still functioning or not. It may have been shut down. I have no way of knowing. This video is the first time seeing how an array like that operates.
A video on how the old A-B copper cables worked would be interesting. I was a cable locate in the 90s.I remember seeing abandoned A-B long distance copper cables outside of Salt Lake and other places.
Very cool. Thanks for posting👍
Such a cool piece of history. Thank you!
Still have a couple of those towers in my area. One of them has had most of the microwave receivers removed from the tower, but there are still a few of them up there.
Thanks for the inside look. We still have one of these towers standing with 6 or 7 ears on it. They probably use it for cell now but the old ears are so cold war cool looking.
Very cool! Had one of those towers in the town I grew up in. Was always a mystery. Equipment back in that day was super heavy duty, it seems.
I remember in late 90s when AT&T started auctioning off these sites. I wish I had the 10k or so they were going for back then.
Thanks for the peek at the old gear. I bet you could fire those bad boys up and load the wave guides with a lot of grease and popcorn and...
Great video!! I have always wondered what it would look like inside one of those buildings. The equipment and all.
Interesting fact - American Tower bought most if not all of these sites from AT&T in the early 2000’s for a song. They wanted the tower infrastructure for back haul .
Loved seeing those as a kid, we still have plenty still standing in our area, still a sight to see. For years the perfectly round ones we just use to call them big bass drums and satellites , it wasn’t until a few years ago I found out they were called microwaves and longline antennas. Also not far from me one has a nuclear fallout shelter
The first machine shop I worked at after high school in 85 made those wave-guide assemblies. The shop is still in business. I am sure you area aware that wave-guides are used in a lot of other applications. Such as Satellites, and Aircraft.
There's one of these AT&T installations in my city. I've seen it for decades and never knew what it really was. I always thought it was for radio broadcasting.
Thanks for the video, i never saw theses devices as i'm across atlantic. It was very interesting!
That's the back of a flux capacitor at 5:50
There is still one of these long line towers still up. in Bowdin, Maine. The microwave part has been decommissioned but I believe the tower is used for cellular now. Its cool to see the original microwave antennas intact tho.
Cellular is microwave, now 5Ghz and started at 800Mhz, so the tower is still used for it's original purpose, just in a different format.
Learned something new today. :) good to know
The dehydrator system and the alarm monitor alarmed the alarm center if the pressor dropped or the Dehydrator had high moisture or failed to dry one of the desiccant tanks. the gray alarm units on the wall connected to the waveguide were to monitor each direction of either TX or RX waveguide for a drop in the normal pressures of 2 inches of water pressure that also help to then locate the leak in the system and then repair the leak. there o ring on the wave guide and the monitor point has a glass window so the microwave can pass but the air pressure in on the outside wave guide.
I do D/C power so I work at a lot of small independent telephone companies which are museums and the hydro plants that the power companies own are full of awesome tools from the early 1900's
This looks like a site out in Lake Co California. But then again a lot of these sites were very similar in construction. Love seeing these old LL sites and have been in a few that have been repurposed into Public Safety, Cell, LMR and WISP sites.
The area that I live in had several AT&T microwave towers with the huge Cone antennas, they wreaked havoc on TVRO, SMATV, & C band VSAT terminals.
I built quite a niche business selling notch filters and specialty antenna systems.
I was quite successful in achieving 90+% transponder functionality, even on VideoCipher encrypted channels.
Many clients were skeptical as they had other techs come in making promises and delivering a terribly low % of functionality.
I worked with Microwave Filter from New York and Patriot antennas, I guaranteed at least 90% channel restoration, which left the client confident that they wouldn't be stuck with useless hardware.
I put dishes in the Indiana area. There was one link that was a PITA to deal with. Few customers was good with the notch filter. One customer had to cancel the deal as it was too much and could not get anything from the sats.
@techwolflupindo
That's how most all of my clients were on my first visit to determine feasibility.
One was on a hilltop and looked right down the boresight of an AT& T tower that was about 6 miles out.
That job required not only filtration and a parabola with a deep f/d ratio, but I also had to add microwave absorbant material all the way around the edge of the parabola and a Mitsubishi TI Fighter feedhorn..
Ive also heard it called AIP'ed. Abandonded in place.
We called the towers bird cookers.
@@RodgerMudd and until they knew it, craftsmen cookers. Many guys way before me ended up with different forms of cancer from those towers
My Dad was a line trouble shooter for At&T out of Seattle in the 70’s to mid 80’s I am sure this is like some of the equipment he used to work on like Tone Terminal Unit or TTU is what he called it
thankyou really enjoyed the tour
There are some of these towers still up. Not sure if any power is running to them
Interesting that they use the term "retired in place". We used the same term in law enforcement for cops who were just laying low until they could either retire or move on to something else.
I love old tech and think it should be preserved, but I can't help but wonder how many grams of gold are present on-site in inert card-edges and coaxial connectors. Not enough for Ma' Bell to care about, but I'm sure it's not insignificant.
There is an old one near my hometown on us route 30 headed east towards Gettysburg Pennsylvania
Built this at North Carolina Works and Merrimack Valley.
I remember dealing with these as they interfered with C-Band satellite dishes. Today, C-Band satellite has been shutdown and now reallacted to cellular use. Would be great to reporpus two towers as a 5GHz wifi link. As the wave tubes can handle anything higher then 3GHz.
C band is not shut down. I still have a c band dish and I still receive video on it.
Reminds me of the inside of any Central Office...frozen in time and remnants of old equipment still hanging in racks (lots of RIP).
Love to get ahold of that stuff as a Hamradio operator this is my dream place I love . Thiers nothing wrong with that scope thier the best you can get
Nice. I've seen a few of the stations, including a pretty desolate one near Edwards AFB.
If someone wanted to get ahold of some of this equipment, how could they? How do you even volunteer to haul or buy this stuff?
OK. I've been fascinated by these LL sites for a few years now, mostly because I love old tech and the secret places regular folks never get to see. If you don't mind me asking, which transceiver site is this? We have one in downtown Oakland (CA) just sitting on the roof of, I think the Wells Fargo building? But what I really want to know is what's in the bunkers. All of these sites were hardened in case of nuclear war.
Also, I didn't know you could just pipe microwaves places. I always thought the magnetron lived in the dish. From what I've learned here it makes me want whole house microwave outlets, you know, like the whole house vacuum systems? Want a snack in you bedroom? Grab something outta the cooler drawer and toss it in the zapper node!
Man, I miss back when we used to live in the future...
Look like the Denver Colorado site.
Your should ask if you can turn some of the transmitters into ham gear to work the SHF microwave frequencies up there lol. Imagine the output you could get from one of those microwave transmitters.
That would be cool. Some of the older sites that were sold off have become repeater sites for 2m/70cm
They were very low power, on the order of a couple watts output. However, coupled with the gain of the cornucopia antennas, it was effectively multiplied sometimes hundred of times.
When the title said old I was hoping to see vacuum tube equipment! Maybe a Klystron.
How about some explanation about how this works?
Wow! Im so glad you gave us this tour! More more more!!!
This is very interesting. It's amazing how things used to work and how technological changes have made them obsolete. A site like this could be repurposed for ham radio use, especially during emergencies, although it would be better if it still had the towers to mount antennas on.
That was good stuff back in the day. I worked for Motorola for 30 years, I have been to hundreds of different sites and seen this stuff..
I hate to see it get RIP
I'm surprised it isn't dusty.
There's still some towers around. There's one in North Georgia north of Dahlonega.
There's still plenty here in Florida too but the copper tubes have been removed
I've always wonder what was on the inside of those horn towers. The odd rectangle shape? Is there a website describing these towers.
very neat - Thanks for showing us
The Long Lines division was actually for voice and data transmission for the Department of Defense. It was one of the DoD's early warning, command and control communications systems for nuclear defense. It was used for civilian video, data, and voice when the DoD use was low.
AT&T Long Lines was responsible for ALL long distance transmission, not just defense. It carried network television signals also before satellites.
Would be interesting to snap-shot the cost of all the gear, at moment in time of gear purchase. Is that bunker a billion-dollar concern?
At 1:50 those are the low pressure alarm units.