Teams
Forum List
Toggle sidebar

Anyone know what the huge tower is off of HWY 330?

cyfan964

cyfan964

Well-Known Member
Oct 22, 2006
4,968
541
113
I was taking some back roads back to Ames, for the fun of it the other day, from the Harvester and happened across this tower in the middle of nowhere that has to be over 120' tall. I'm guessing it is a weather station or something, but am curious if anyone knows. I've done some searching to no avail. It's so weird, just in the middle of a section. Here's its location on google maps:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8800564,-93.2415839,1072m/data=!3m1!1e3

And here's a crappy photo I took with my phone:

pEwnzn7.jpg
 
Last edited:
Looked it up on my aviation chart. I think the tower you are referring to is 230 feet high which is really not all that big especially compared to other tower and windmills in the area.
 
Those microwave towers are all over...There's also one of the concrete towers between West Branch and Highway 1, and there's one visible from highway 20 at Farley, although this one has a steel truss tower:

th


(Cell phone tower on the left was added in the last 20 years, the microwave tower has been there since at least the early 80s)
 
cyfan964 said:
I was taking some back roads back to Ames, for the fun of it the other day, from the Harvester and happened across this tower in the middle of nowhere that has to be over 120' tall. I'm guessing it is a weather station or something, but am curious if anyone knows. I've done some searching to no avail. It's so weird, just in the middle of a section. Here's its location on google maps:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8800564,-93.2415839,1072m/data=!3m1!1e3

And here's a crappy photo I took with my phone:

pEwnzn7.jpg
Click to expand...

http://beacon.schneidercorp.com/App...&PageTypeID=4&PageID=1108&KeyValue=1625400310
 
I think those towers had something to do with the ability to communicate during the Cold War if normal communication went down during a nuclear strike
 
If you are a techy or into the history of electronics, the AT&T Long Lines stuff is fascinating.

In addition to the using the microwave links for transmitting information (shown in the OP), AT&T ran some monster coaxial cables across the country. The picture on the right is a splice.

L4_L5.jpg coax-diagram.jpg 127075612.jpg

http://long-lines.net/
 
Cycsk said:
Assessed value is less than my garage!
Click to expand...

The structure is valued at zero, the assessed value is solely the land value. Buildings have not been assessed for about 10 years, so my assumption would be this tower doesn't even work anymore.
 
19clone91 said:
I think those towers had something to do with the ability to communicate during the Cold War if normal communication went down during a nuclear strike
Click to expand...

Those towers probably were for "normal communication". The one in the OP looks like a microwave link tower. They carried telephone calls and various other data, including TV network broadcasts. Satellite communications supplanted these.

As a kid, I would tune in to watch a favorite network show, only to hear that the station was on local programming because a microwave link was down in some neighboring state. Everybody downstream of the broken link was hosed.
 
Last edited:
There used to be one very similar, but not as tall, in downtown Ames years ago. I'm not sure when it was taken down - early 90s, maybe?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Help Support Us

Become a patron
Top Bottom