A recent article by Andrew Tarantola referred to San Francisco’s 977-foot tall, three-legged Sutro Tower as the “weirdest looking tower.” It may not be as traditional-looking as we’ve become accustomed to but this giant structure is a vital part of the community’s communications infrastructure. According to Tarantola, “San Francisco’s iconic hills aren’t just impediments to pedestrians, they effectively block radio waves and line-of-sight television signals as well. Before construction on the tower began in 1971, television reception—remember this was the age of rabbit ears—in the Sunset was spotty at best on account of all the hills. The Bay Area did have multiple TV signal transmitters on a number of regional peaks including San Bruno Mountain, Mt. Allison, Monument Peak, and Mt. Diablo—but the signal quality of each varied depending where you were in the city. Sutro Tower was designed to act as a central transmitting hub for the entire city. By centralizing the main Bay Area TV signal transmissions, rather than receiving from the multiple regional sources, everybody in San Francisco would be able to get all of the channels all of the times without having to fiddle with the rabbit ears.” The 20 million watt tower is owned jointly by four local stations TV stations who banded together in 1968 and currently transmits 14 local TV and FM stations, and hosts 118 public-private antennas relaying public safety, transportation, and even cellular signals.
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