AT&T Long Lines "Oak Hill" Tower, San Jose, CA, 2021.
AT&T Long Lines "Oak Hill" Tower, San Jose, CA, 2021.
AT&T Long Lines "Oak Hill" Tower, San Jose, CA, 2021.
Highly regulated pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51261791084
#photography
The hurricane strength one in the Florida keys is always striking
@[email protected] One of at least two very interesting former Long Lines towers in that area! The other is the troposcatter installation south of Florida City, which was (until surprisingly recently) the main telecom link between the US and Cuba. I believe this was the only commercial (as opposed to military or experimental) link to use troposcatter. I think that site (which also had the horn antennas) was also the next hop from the tower you posted.
@[email protected] Haven't you posted this one before?
@[email protected] Possibly. Is that OK?
Of course it's OK.
I was hoping you were going to say "You must have remembered it from Google Plus" or "It was this other tower at this other location" or "Turns out I actually have 34 photographs of this tower taken over a period of 17 years".
Captured with the Rodenstock 50mm/4.0 HR Digaron-W lens (@ f/4.5) on a Cambo WRS-1600 camera (with about 15mm of vertical shift to preserve the geometry), the Phase One IQ4-150 back (@ ISO 50) in dual exposure mode (which preserves a couple stops of additional dynamic range into the shadows).
The tower's shape is irregular; it tapers slightly.
The wide angle and panoramic orientation give a bit of context, alone on a hill (which is being rapidly encroached by adjacent residential development).
For much of the 20th century, the backbone of the AT&T "Long Lines" long distance telephone network consisted primarily of terrestrial microwave links (rather than copper or fiber cables). Towers with distinctive KS-15676 "horn" antennas could be seen on hilltops and atop switching center buildings across the US; they were simply part of the American landscape.
Most of the relay towers were simple steel structures. This brutalist concrete platform in San Jose was, I believe, of a unique design.
The San Jose Oak Hill Tower is unique in a number of ways. The concrete brutalist design appears not to have been replicated anywhere else; it seems to have been site-specific. It sits atop an underground switching center (that was partly used for a military contract), which explains the relatively hardened design.
Today the underground switch is still there, owned by AT&T, but the tower space is leased to land mobile and cellular providers. The old horn antennas at top are disconnected.
@[email protected] Looks weirdly ominous...
When I was a kid, we'd drive by that tower every Sunday on our way to my grandmother's house. There were a lot of brutalist structures around back then and I never realized it was an unique design. Thanks for the memories.