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Do IT this week: Layering
Shalersville, Richfield towers are links to 1949 cross-country marathon
By Mark J. Price
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 05:00 p.m. EST, Nov 22, 2009
Strange-looking silos loomed above Ohio's farmland in 1949.
Built on hills about 25 to 30 miles apart, the concrete-and-steel towers offered unobstructed views of one another. Engineers chose the locations carefully, calculating the curvature of the earth to determine a clear path.
Workers cut down trees and sheared off slopes to ensure that nothing would get in the way as the unusual trail meandered over the horizon.
Sixty years ago, Ohio was in a relay race.
The marathon began in New York, hurtled toward Chicago and ended in San Francisco.
From coast to coast, Americans would soon enjoy live pictures on network television. The so-called ''TV superhighway,'' made up of microwave relay stations, would beam programs nearly 3,000 miles in a fraction of a second.
Portage County's Shalersville Township and Summit County's Richfield Township were links in the transcontinental chain. The rural communities housed two of Ohio's 10 original towers.
Other silos were built from east to west in Winona, Lorain, Birmingham, Castalia, Gibsonburg, Swanton, Wauseon and Bryan. A second chain connected Columbus to Cincinnati.
The American Telephone & Telegraph Co. supervised installation of the towers, which carried TV signals and long-distance phone calls. Each Ohio relay station cost $150,000 to build — about $1.4 million today. The National Concrete Fireproofing Co. of Cleveland won the $3 million contract.
''The towers will be the first of their kind ever constructed,'' National Concrete General Manager E.A. Gunderson explained in 1949. ''They will be 26 feet square, varying in height from 90 to 250 feet and built entirely of reinforced concrete.''
The 147-foot Shalersville tower was built on a hilltop off Peck Road north of state Route 303. The unmanned, automatic station had 18- by 24-foot rooms containing TV machinery, storage batteries and a diesel engine in case of power failure. More than 200 steps led from the ground to the roof.
Technical explanation
Horn-shaped directional antennas were perched atop the structure. Each relay station caught a microwave beam, amplified it, refocused it and fired it to the next silo on the horizon.
Television pioneer Vladimir Zworykin explained the process in 1954: ''In order to obtain a highly linear response, the frequency modulation is carried out originally at 4280 megacycles, by modulating the repeller voltage of a reflect klystron, and the resulting signal is converted to 66 to 74 megacycles with a 4210-megacycle oscillation.
''The 70-megacycle i-f signal modulates a selected microwave carrier, which is generated by a quartz crystal tuned to about 18 megacycles followed by six frequency multipliers.''
No, we haven't got a clue what Zworykin was talking about, but we'll just have to take his word on it.
The 104-foot Richfield station was built on Boston Mills Road just east of Black Road. Also automatic, it was equipped to carry 600 phone circuits or one TV program in each direction.
The Ohio Turnpike, which also began construction in 1949, traveled past the imposing towers in Shalersville and Richfield.
Television was still considered a novelty in Ohio, although that changed rapidly.
Cleveland's first station, WEWS, went on the air in late 1947, followed by WNBK in 1948 and WXEL in 1949.
Back then, a good TV set cost about $325 — roughly $2,900 today. Banks offered financing so homeowners could buy one.
In Akron, only 256 sets were sold in 1947. That jumped to 1,319 in 1948. Within five years, Akron had more than 10,000 TV sets.
As the U.S. relay system neared completion, Popular Mechanics reported on the strange towers: ''You may have seen them from the highways — massive spires of steel and concrete, some more than 100 feet tall, jutting from hills and mountain tops like untapered versions of the Washington Monument, and each crowned by four huge antennas that resemble overgrown loudspeakers on a soundtruck.''
Ohio Bell officials promised that the new structures would bring stronger TV reception. Television was still a black-and-white medium, but the relay stations were capable of transmitting color pictures.
New York and Chicago began exchanging microwave beams in the summer of 1950.
Historic broadcast
Coast-to-coast television finally arrived Sept. 4, 1951, when the four TV networks — ABC, NBC, CBS and DuMont — covered a 30-minute speech by President Harry Truman in San Francisco. About 40 million people tuned in across the nation as signals raced across AT&T's 105 relay towers.
The picture was so clear that viewers could see the stripes in Truman's tie.
Within a few months, I Love Lucy, Dragnet, Sky King and The Red Skelton Show would enthrall viewers from coast to coast. Color television was on the horizon.
AT&T used the radio-television relay network for more than 30 years until the company's court-ordered divestiture in 1984. Satellite TV left earthbound relay stations in the dust.
Many of the old concrete towers were converted into cell phone towers.
In 1999, Boston-based American Tower Corp. bought 1,942 microwave towers, including the ones in Shalersville and Richfield. The company now owns 20,000 U.S. towers.
With tall structures everywhere today, the original television silos don't seem to stand out as much.
Passing motorists on the Ohio Turnpike probably aren't aware that the 60-year-old landmarks helped popularize television from coast to coast.
In broadcast history, the old relay system was a towering achievement.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send e-mail to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
Strange-looking silos loomed above Ohio's farmland in 1949.
Built on hills about 25 to 30 miles apart, the concrete-and-steel towers offered unobstructed views of one another. Engineers chose the locations carefully, calculating the curvature of the earth to determine a clear path.
Workers cut down trees and sheared off slopes to ensure that nothing would get in the way as the unusual trail meandered over the horizon.
Sixty years ago, Ohio was in a relay race.
The marathon began in New York, hurtled toward Chicago and ended in San Francisco.
From coast to coast, Americans would soon enjoy live pictures on network television. The so-called ''TV superhighway,'' made up of microwave relay stations, would beam programs nearly 3,000 miles in a fraction of a second.
Portage County's Shalersville Township and Summit County's Richfield Township were links in the transcontinental chain. The rural communities housed two of Ohio's 10 original towers.
Other silos were built from east to west in Winona, Lorain, Birmingham, Castalia, Gibsonburg, Swanton, Wauseon and Bryan. A second chain connected Columbus to Cincinnati.
The American Telephone & Telegraph Co. supervised installation of the towers, which carried TV signals and long-distance phone calls. Each Ohio relay station cost $150,000 to build — about $1.4 million today. The National Concrete Fireproofing Co. of Cleveland won the $3 million contract.
''The towers will be the first of their kind ever constructed,'' National Concrete General Manager E.A. Gunderson explained in 1949. ''They will be 26 feet square, varying in height from 90 to 250 feet and built entirely of reinforced concrete.''
The 147-foot Shalersville tower was built on a hilltop off Peck Road north of state Route 303. The unmanned, automatic station had 18- by 24-foot rooms containing TV machinery, storage batteries and a diesel engine in case of power failure. More than 200 steps led from the ground to the roof.
Technical explanation
Horn-shaped directional antennas were perched atop the structure. Each relay station caught a microwave beam, amplified it, refocused it and fired it to the next silo on the horizon.
Television pioneer Vladimir Zworykin explained the process in 1954: ''In order to obtain a highly linear response, the frequency modulation is carried out originally at 4280 megacycles, by modulating the repeller voltage of a reflect klystron, and the resulting signal is converted to 66 to 74 megacycles with a 4210-megacycle oscillation.
''The 70-megacycle i-f signal modulates a selected microwave carrier, which is generated by a quartz crystal tuned to about 18 megacycles followed by six frequency multipliers.''
No, we haven't got a clue what Zworykin was talking about, but we'll just have to take his word on it.
The 104-foot Richfield station was built on Boston Mills Road just east of Black Road. Also automatic, it was equipped to carry 600 phone circuits or one TV program in each direction.
The Ohio Turnpike, which also began construction in 1949, traveled past the imposing towers in Shalersville and Richfield.
Television was still considered a novelty in Ohio, although that changed rapidly.
Cleveland's first station, WEWS, went on the air in late 1947, followed by WNBK in 1948 and WXEL in 1949.
Back then, a good TV set cost about $325 — roughly $2,900 today. Banks offered financing so homeowners could buy one.
In Akron, only 256 sets were sold in 1947. That jumped to 1,319 in 1948. Within five years, Akron had more than 10,000 TV sets.
As the U.S. relay system neared completion, Popular Mechanics reported on the strange towers: ''You may have seen them from the highways — massive spires of steel and concrete, some more than 100 feet tall, jutting from hills and mountain tops like untapered versions of the Washington Monument, and each crowned by four huge antennas that resemble overgrown loudspeakers on a soundtruck.''
Ohio Bell officials promised that the new structures would bring stronger TV reception. Television was still a black-and-white medium, but the relay stations were capable of transmitting color pictures.
New York and Chicago began exchanging microwave beams in the summer of 1950.
Historic broadcast
Coast-to-coast television finally arrived Sept. 4, 1951, when the four TV networks — ABC, NBC, CBS and DuMont — covered a 30-minute speech by President Harry Truman in San Francisco. About 40 million people tuned in across the nation as signals raced across AT&T's 105 relay towers.
The picture was so clear that viewers could see the stripes in Truman's tie.
Within a few months, I Love Lucy, Dragnet, Sky King and The Red Skelton Show would enthrall viewers from coast to coast. Color television was on the horizon.
AT&T used the radio-television relay network for more than 30 years until the company's court-ordered divestiture in 1984. Satellite TV left earthbound relay stations in the dust.
Many of the old concrete towers were converted into cell phone towers.
In 1999, Boston-based American Tower Corp. bought 1,942 microwave towers, including the ones in Shalersville and Richfield. The company now owns 20,000 U.S. towers.
With tall structures everywhere today, the original television silos don't seem to stand out as much.
Passing motorists on the Ohio Turnpike probably aren't aware that the 60-year-old landmarks helped popularize television from coast to coast.
In broadcast history, the old relay system was a towering achievement.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send e-mail to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
Comments
Click here to post your comments
akron, oh
Posted 06:49 PM, 11/22/2009
Aurthur C. Clarke would love this!
somewhere near you, US
Posted 08:53 PM, 11/22/2009
I really hate to criticize but hey Leakin, are pictures really too much to ask for?
Akron, OH
Posted 04:16 PM, 11/23/2009
The good old days. Three channels but always something worth watching.
Posted 06:42 AM, 12/04/2009
Thanks Mark another great story I never knew. Just love them; keep up the good work.
