AT&T Long Lines "Oak Hill Tower", San Jose, CA, 2021.
AT&T Long Lines "Oak Hill Tower", San Jose, CA, 2021.
AT&T Long Lines "Oak Hill Tower", San Jose, CA, 2021.
All the pixels, none of the RF exposure, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51261791084
#photography
Captured with the Rodenstock 50mm/4.0 HR Digaron-W lens (@ f/4.5) on a Cambo WRS-1600 camera (with about 15mm of vertical shift to preserve the geometry), the Phase One IQ4-150 back (@ ISO 50) in dual exposure mode (which preserves a couple stops of additional dynamic range into the shadows).
The tower's shape is irregular; it tapers slightly.
The wide angle and panoramic orientation give a bit of context, alone on a hill (which is being rapidly encroached by adjacent residential development).
For much of the 20th century, the backbone of the AT&T "Long Lines" long distance telephone network consisted primarily of terrestrial microwave links (rather than copper or fiber cables). Towers with distinctive KS-15676 "horn" antennas could be seen on hilltops and atop switching center buildings across the US; they were simply part of the American landscape.
Most of the relay towers were simple steel structures. This brutalist concrete platform in San Jose was, I believe, of a unique design.
@mattblaze@federate.social I've been looking at some of the Alert California cameras around LA (have friends in Northridge) and stumbled across a tower on one of the cameras on Topanga Peak which has a nice view of another one of those Long Lines stations. https://cameras.alertcalifornia.org/?pos=34.0959_-118.5425_12&%3Bid=Axis-TopangaPeak2
@mattblaze@federate.social here is a toot about a very technical video tour of the shack at the bottom of one of these sites. The video host is very well informed and does a GREAT job at commenting the visit, with a description of everything
https://chaos.social/@f4grx/113826985021478406
The batteries are impressive, among other things.
The San Jose Oak Hill Tower is unique in a number of ways. This particular concrete brutalist design appears not to have been used anywhere else; it seems to have been site-specific. It sits atop an underground switching center (that was partly used for a military contract), which explains the relatively hardened design.
Today the underground switch is still there, owned by AT&T, but the tower space is leased to land mobile and cellular providers. The old horn antennas at top are disconnected.
@mattblaze@federate.social there is still a tower with those horn antennas off highway 11 in northern Ontario. There used to be a set where I grew up, but now it's just a massive tower with a few tiny cell antennas on it. Fiber went through in 1990 and we all got touch tone.