Sutro Tower
San Francisco, California
The Sutro Tower Antenna Installation Project
Part 3
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| Work was completed on the west mast (center) during the first few days of September. The guy cables were attached to the top of the new antenna and the gin pole was removed. Work on the northeast mast (on the right) will be next. This photo, by Ken Erickson, was taken on September 2, 2009. |
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| Work on the northeast mast began during the week of September 7. As shown here, in a photo taken on the morning of September 11 from my living room window, the gin pole has been attached to the mast and the guy wires have been removed from the center of the old analog antennas. |
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| This photo was taken at about 9:30 am on September 15. This is the first view of the tower in several days as it's been covered in fog. Note that the analog antennas are gone from the northeast mast and the guy wires to the top of the existing section have been removed. You can also see two crewmen on the mast. |
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| This photo was taken at about 1 pm on September 15. You can see another crewman in this photo further down on the mast. |
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| On September 16 at about 1:45 pm you can see a big change. The top section of the center part of the mast is gone. |
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| By 4 pm the bottom section of the center part of the mast is gone. |
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| Then the fog starts moving in. |
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| This photo was taken on the morning of September 17 |
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| Later on September 17 we saw them raising something from the ground to the mast |
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| On September 18 we noticed that the gin pole had been lowered |
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Fog covered the tower on September 19, but cleared early on September 20
when this photo was taken. Another section of the mast has been removed. |
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| They're starting to rebuild the mast. This photo was taken late morning on September 22. |
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| On September 23 there was a brief break in the fog to get this picture. |
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| The tower was covered in fog all day on September 24. This photo was taken on the morning of September 25. The northeast mast continues to grow taller and the lower guy lines have been installed. |
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| For details on the Phillystran guy lines used on Sutro Tower, click here. |
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| This photo taken on the morning of September 26 shows that more mast has been added. |
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| This photo taken on the morning of September 27 shows that guy wires have been added to the top of the existing mast. |
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| I took this photo on the morning of September 29. As far as I can see, there haven't been any changes or additions in the past two days. |
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| The new antenna is being installed atop the northeast tower! This photo taken mid-afternoon on September 30 shows that the first stage of the KQED 30-KMPT 33-KCNS 39-KCSM 43 antenna is in place. |
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| October 1 mid-morning - a brighter view of the masts showing the first stage of the new antenna on the northeast mast. |
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| October 1 - 1:00 pm - We spot the top section of the new antenna being hoisted up the mast. The arrow points to the new section. |
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| The following is a series of 12 photos showing the top section of the new antenna being hoisted up the mast and installed atop the other section. This series of photos was taken over a two hour period. In many of these pictures you can see the crew members climbing on the antenna and gin pole. What a job they have! |
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The left shot below was taken at 3:30 pm and the final shot on the right was taken at 3:55. A total of
two hours 50 minutes had elapsed between the time we first spotted the top section, as shown above,
and this final shot.
You can now see what the tower is going to look like. The three masts have reached their full height. To give you perspective, the three masts on top of the cantilever section are each 230 feet tall. |
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| October 2 morning view of completed KQED-KMTP-KCNS-KCSM antenna. Note that the guy lines have not been installed yet. |
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| October 3 morning view shows that the guy lines have now been installed to the top of the new antenna. |
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| October 3 close up view of the new KQED-KMTP-KCNS-KCSM antenna taken from Twin Peaks. Photo courtesy of Ken Erickson. |
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This October 3 photo taken just before sunset from Twin Peaks shows that the new side-mounted KFSF
antenna has been installed.
This completes the installation of all the new television antennas on the tower. |
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The crew worked on the tuning and phasing of the new antenna system starting on October 12. Some
of the stations started using the new antennas on October 19, 2009. More stations were switched over
on October 20 and 21.
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| On the left you see the temporary antenna that was used for digital transmission for the UHF stations from November, 1998, until October 12, 2009. On the right, in a photo taken on October 24, you see that the antenna has been removed from the tower. The KSOL-FM antenna that was attached to the bottom of the digital TV antenna is now attached to the cross arm. |
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| The antenna project is complete. The permanent KOIT-FM antenna has been installed and their temporary antenna at the end of the crosswalk has been removed. Here you see the new KOIT antenna mounted just below the KFSF antenna on the northeast mast. Photos by Ken Erickson. |
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| The auxiliary antennas that were used for analog operation have been removed. Here are the before and after photos of Level 1 showing the changes. The red antenna is the auxiliary antenna for KGO-TV. New photo by Ken Erickson. |
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Sutro Tower as seen on November 14, 2009, in its final configuration with all of the new antennas installed
and all of the old antennas removed.
I suspect that a new coat of paint will be next. |
| Photos and text by Larry Kenney unless otherwise indicated. |
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