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AT&T Long Lines "Oak Hill Tower", San Jose, CA, 2021. (fedia.io)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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AT&T Long Lines "Oak Hill Tower", San Jose, CA, 2021.

All the pixels, none of the RF exposure, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51261791084

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The San Jose Oak Hill Tower is unique in a number of ways. This particular concrete brutalist design appears not to have been used 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] 1 points 1 week ago (3 children)

With a few exceptions (mostly towers atop downtown switching offices in populated areas), no one was trying to make any of this utilitarian communications infrastructure beautiful. It was form strictly following function, built to be reliable and rugged.

But there was, I think, quite a bit of beauty to find in it. I wonder if we'll look at our current neighborhood cellular towers, now often regarded as a visual blight, the same way decades after they're (inevitably) also gone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

@[email protected] Before BT (in the UK) went to fibre, they had a wide variety of towers for MW backbone/trunk data/voice comms. Many were utilitarian extended metal tetrahedra or trihedra, but some were quite unique - perhaps the most obvious being the former Post Office Tower in London.

Many of them are now shadow of their former selves, with very few antennae attached.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

@[email protected] I was sad when they removed the antennas from the Post Office Tower (which I understand is being refurbished into a hotel).