Station fire likely to hit historic Mt. Wilson observatory, fire officials say

LA Times ^ | August 30, 2009 | Joe Mozingo

[jessduntno]

That’s because there has been no fuels management in the Angeles National Forest for, oh, 30 to 40 years.

We got plenty of cool bike lanes and pretty center strips, though...

[NVDave]

Yup. You certainly do.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Or the possibility that one of the facilities could itself suffer a malfunction that would ignite a fire.

[catbertz]

I had that same thought tonight, about the obvious need for a good size buffer around all that gear.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I hope there is some emergency alternative broadcast site. Having all TV go off the air at once will stir up some folks. (I guess cable feeds will not have a problem.)

[jessduntno]

The picture at the link in post 12 is updating...

[StevieB]

If you are ever in LA, take the trip up to Mt.Wilson. It’s the highest point over the LA basic, and there are very few places in the basin that aren’t direct line-of-sight from the mountain.

[presently no screen name]

yes I notice that - I have two of them up now. Thanks.

[Ancient Drive]

ah yes.. the environutjobs didn’t even want cleared brush. That 50 yrs. without clearing anything was irresponsible!

[HiTech RedNeck]

And I suppose it’s nice to not need any antenna rotor.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Or plant something that doesn’t burn as easily. (Cactus?)

[R_Kangel]

My neighbors have been moving their horses out over the weekend in anticipation of this possible breach.

It has come close before but now we are all on pins and needles.

After the Ontario fire a year or so ago when almost 20 miles of mountain went up in smoke....we realize anything is possible now!

Be safe all!

[jessduntno]

ah yes.. the environutjobs didn’t even want cleared brush. That 50 yrs. without clearing anything was irresponsible!

But the blue tailed ground squirrel will go unharmed!

[AGreatPer]

I just caught a religious channel.

Their footnote is, "Our Tower is on Mt. Wilson. Prey for us.

[EDINVA]

I just got “IE.. cannot display this page.”

[presently no screen name]

But the blue tailed ground squirrel will go unharmed!

He's probably toast now.

[Ron C.]

Yes it is - and because of that, it makes loading from home quite a bit slower... nice thing, bandwidth to this FR link is FAR faster than the average home DSL... hence, it's better to refresh here and watch the coming fire than to try watching from your own PC!

~grin~

[NVDave]

Maybe, but probably not. There’s very little that substitutes for height above terrain at VHF and UHF frequencies; ie, you can’t substitute power for antenna height on a mountaintop.

The topology of the LA area leaves you with really only two areas to site TV/FM antennas: the Santa Monica Mountains (a poor, but possible alternative, which would result in sacrificing coverage to the south and northwest) and the San Gabriel Mountains, where the sites are now. Anything you’d site elsewhere is a bust.

For LA coverage, siting too far east in the San Gabriel Mtns is a bust too.

Having all TV transmitters go off the air at once would be pretty amusing in LA, actually. It would probably show how increasingly irrelevant TV is.

Now, if the cell phone service were to suffer a huge outage... that would get people really pissed in LA.

[presently no screen name]

That’s TBN.

[Tomato lover]