WITI TV Tower
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WITI TV Tower | |
---|---|
television tower | |
Location | Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
Coordinates | 43°05′26″N 87°53′50″W / 43.09056°N 87.89722°W |
Completed | 1962 |
Height | 329.4 m (1,081 ft) |
The WITI TV Tower is a
History
The tower was built after FCC relaxed earlier tight guidelines on station co-location as the various characteristics of the signal ranges for VHF television and FM signals were shown in everyday consumer use.
In 1956, WITI came to the air as an
As such, WITI thus launched being licensed to the North Shore suburb of Whitefish Bay, with a tower located in Ozaukee County in the then-Town of Mequon to address the Lansing and Davenport interference issues. This proved disadvantageous to WITI because viewers in the area had to aim their antennas more northward or northeastward to receive WITI, where the city's other stations were centrally located north of downtown. In 1958, WITI would be purchased by Storer Broadcasting and would acquire the market's CBS affiliation in 1959, then switched to ABC in 1961, with that affiliate switch partially due to WISN-TV (channel 12)'s more central signal. The station would continue to campaign the FCC to relocate its city of license to Milwaukee, along with its transmitter site, and finally was successful in doing so in 1962. However, the appropriate area to build the tower was Milwaukee's north side (as the south side's Mitchell International Airport prevented any location of broadcast towers in that area), and with most of the prime in-city sites already taken by other radio and television stations, WITI would instead be required to locate the tower in a nearby suburb just outside the Milwaukee city limits.
The village of Shorewood allowed WITI to build the tower on a piece of privately owned land that otherwise would have completed the Estabrook Parkway along the
An issue with the tower's location is that the west side of the property is along the
In August 1962, construction of the 1,081 feet (329 m) tower was completed. It was formally dedicated on October 9, 1962. Storer looked for a way to make the tower a Milwaukee landmark, and in October 1963, the station received permission from the Shorewood village board to install additional non-
The lights stayed on until the energy crisis of 1973-74, when a viewer suggestion permanently darkened the lighting, though the maintenance costs of the lighting were already high due to winter and spring atmospheric icing which would rain higher-up icicles onto the lighting, constantly breaking bulbs (the icing also occasionally requires the area around the tower to be closed for safety reasons). The strands remained dormant upon the tower legs until 2003, when they, along with the giant "6" sign, were removed as the station fitted the tower for digital broadcasting.[2]
Outside WITI, the city's
The Tower is located off of the Oak Leaf Trail, just north of Capitol Drive in Shorewood, Wisconsin (north of the city of Milwaukee).
Tower tenants
Television
Callsign |
Virtual Channel | Physical Channel | Affiliation | Ownership |
---|---|---|---|---|
WITI | 6 | 31 | Fox | Fox Television Stations |
WVCY-TV | 30 | 31 | independent |
VCY America |
WPXE-TV | 55 | 30 | Ion Television | Ion Media E. W. Scripps Company |
FM radio
Callsign |
Frequency | Format | Owner |
---|---|---|---|
WMWK |
88.1 | Religious | Family Radio |
WYMS | 88.9 | AAA/community | Milwaukee Public Schools (licensee) Radio Milwaukee (operator) |
WUWM | 89.7 | NPR |
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee |
W269DL (WGKB translator) |
101.7 | Locally-based Black talk radio |
Good Karma Brands (operator) New WRRD, LLC (licensee) |
See also
- Lattice tower
- List of tallest towers in the world
- List of tallest freestanding structures in the world
- List of tallest freestanding steel structures
- List of famous transmission sites
References
- ^ "FCCInfo Structure Registration Results".
- ^ Henzl, Ann-Elise (13 April 2018). "If You Like Listening to WUWM, You Just Might Appreciate This Huge Metal Tower". WUWM-FM. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
External links
- History of Milwaukee television
- "Listing 1056835". Antenna Structure Registration database. U.S. Federal Communications Commission.
- WITI TV Tower at Structurae
- http://www.skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=47199
- Fall 2009 Tower Work Images