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.
A monopoly of pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51261791084
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@[email protected] As kids in the 70s, we (at least the we that I ran with) thought this was where the 911 operators were. No kidding. We called it the 911 tower.
@[email protected] You weren't that far off - the public safety tower is on the same hill.
@[email protected] Huh!
"In today's chapter of 'TIL'..."
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.