Comments on: Working with Tower Companies

By: J. Aegerter

J. Aegerter — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:08:45 +0000

Yes, quite true. Many municipalities have restricted strobe lighting systems in their zoning ordinances. How they can overrule federal standards is puzzling and I know of no legal challenges to date. In Wisconsin, some dairy farmers have claimed that strobe lighting affects the nervous systems of cows ability to produce milk, and that they have noticed a diminished milk harvest after strobe lighting systems were installed on nearby towers. Personally, I find this to be outlandish, but strobe lighting does annoy many people. The TWR strobes have an excellent fresnel lens which has the beam concentrated at the horizon with very little illumination at ground level or high angles.
As far as the LED systems that I have seen, most have been troublesome. Lightning transients seem to cumulatively destroy individual LEDs in the array with a cumulative result of lower and lower brilliance. One manufacturer uses switching power supplies mounted in the beacon assembly which is total lunacy. At this state of the art, I would stay away from LED tower lighting systems mainly for the aforementioned, and also because the power savings isn’t great enough. A well engineered strobe system with careful attention to strobe cable installation on a tower is to be preferred as far as I am concerned. Incandescent would be my second choice.

By: admin

admin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:53:08 +0000

We have a couple of newer towers with LED lighting. I like them. Somebody I spoke with who works for the FAA stated they would like to do away with tower painting completely and make all tower owners put in strobes, as that provides the best visibility, day and night. I don’t think most towns/cities will go for this. Strobes seem to drive the neighbors bonkers.

By: J. Aegerter

J. Aegerter — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:10:18 +0000

Strobe systems can be trouble. Hughey-Phillips had a unit (KG-235) that AT&T bought in quantities that was simply horrible. The design had the power supply and most of the electronics in the tower-top unit which of course is “out in the elements”. The capacitors would short out the high voltage and the strobe would quit. How is a tower climber going to fix something like that on top of a tower? We pulled them all and went with TWR after thorough research. We have been real happy with them. The TWR electronics is in a wall mount cabinet that is easy to service. The cabling up the tower has to be installed correctly along with the static-drain bonding. But of course, the old 300mm incandescent 620 Watt bulbs are goof-proof and quick to replace. I really wish the FAA would re-consider changing the tower painting from the old 1935 “International Orange and Aviation White” 7 band painting scheme to what the University of Wisconsin experimented with back in 1973. The WMTV (Channel 15) tower was painted all black under a developmental grant and comments were sought from the pilots and the public. My information was that the solid black tower was more visible during bright sunlight as well as overcast skies than the 1935 standard. The FAA wouldn’t budge however. If we had all black towers with incandescent lamps, the only people moaning would be the energy conserving crowd and the Audobon Society.

By: sonia

sonia — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:25:33 +0000

My husband wants to work in radio, I’ll have to show him this.