Here is a story from AGL about the wildfire threatening the towers on Mt. Wilson in Los Ageles, CA. Southern California Wildfire Threatens Towers on Mt. Wilson Here is a link to a towercam on the mountain, but I couldn't get it to load: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/towercam.htm I'm sure other news outlets have stories about this, please post them here if you find any.
The Los Angeles area isn't the place to be right now. It's literally a living hell. Extreme heat with fire and smoke everywhere. Trying to breath around here is hazardous... If the fire does reach the transmitters on Mt. Wilson, I will be one of those affected by the loss of TV signals, as I don't have cable and rely on the over-the-air signal. 95% of our 26 local TV stations transmit from the mountain.
You may still lose TV signals, even if the towers don't burn. If the AC power is cut by the fire, and the backup generators either choke from the smoke, or run out of fuel before its safe to go back and refuel them, you're out of luck. -jay
So I'm guessing Mount Fulfillment, Mount Success and Mount Satisfaction must be doing quite well then. Yeah, yeah, bad joke. But hopefully things start to get better there.
There was talk on the local news about cell towers at this location in danger as well. But I can't imagine any cell equipment being located at that elevation.
Ah the media, always a good source of information.... NOT! Hah! While there aren't any actual cell sites on Mt Wilson, it is used as a microwave hop for a few carriers.
What? A little pilot pollution never hurt anyone. Better yet throw up a 100 watt Nextel Omni site and watch the fun unfurl.
Well, not that you mention the 100 watt Nextel Omni..... while not on this particular mountain, several of the other large peaks around here did have Nextel omni sites on them and boy oh boy did they have some coverage! As an example, the entire Palmdale/Lancaster area was primarily covered by a high altitude omni site. Palmdale, CA - Google Maps
The road that they were traveling on is a bad road even on a clear and sunny day, I can only imagine trying to drive it in a blackout/no visibility conditions. Certainly a sad event.
Wow, I didn't think omni's were that powerful. That must explain why almost all Rogers Wireless towers and some of the Telus are using them in my area.
The network operator "e-plus" in Germany came up with the "Ultra High Site" concept a few years ago, in order to quickly roll out UMTS: Bundesweite Bereitstellung von 86 Standorten für Ultra-High-Sites (UHS) der E-Plus [DFMG Deutsche Funkturm GmbH] "Ultra High Sites" (UHS) were sites over 100 meters tall, and usually split into 6 sectors instead of the traditional 3. They did get quick coverage, but pilot polution and capacity would be another issue for them, I guess I don't think any other operators followed the UHS model, as they realized it was too dangerous with a UMTS 1/1 frequency re-use pattern... ...anyway, I think in Cali, it's more an issue of microwave repeater sites getting knocked out on the mountain tops (as TelecomJunkie originally said) My sympathies to all in the affected area
