What's that antenna, Daddy (or Mommy?)

Updated November 5, 2012

Click here to go to our main page on antennas

So you're a microwave engineer. You can't count how many times someone has asked you to fix their broken microwave oven, even though you explain to them that is "not what we do". It doesn't stop here...

Everyone has a cell phone these days, and just a vague notion of how their voice (or text) is magically routed to another handset. Maybe once in a while, someone will notice a cell tower, and ask you to explain what's up there. And you, specializing in some other aspect of the craft, are at a loss to provide any info.

So to help out, we've created this page. A good many fans of this site know a lot about antennas, but for everyone else, we're going to point out some features of some random antennas we've photographed. Anton has volunteered to help us, he's made more than a few trips up a thousand foot ladder. How long does it take to scale 1000 feet? Long enough so you'd better bring your lunch, some sunblock, and a few extra screws and tools in case you drop something!

These images are from the top of Mount Lemmon in Arizona. These towers are short, maybe less than 200 feet high, which is fine because they are already 5000 feet above the city of Tucson.

More to come!