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| Tower Site Calendar now available for order |
To some, they’re eyesores on the landscape. But to one man, radio and television towers are landscapes, and beautiful ones, too. For a dozen years now, journalist/photographer/broadcaster Scott Fybush has created an annual wall calendar featuring artistic photos of important and historic broadcast tower sites from coast to coast, and he’s just released the 2013 edition, which includes the now-demolished towers of WVJS in Owensboro.
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| The former WVJS towers, demolished earlier this year |
“Some people may think all radio towers look alike, but the Tower Site Calendar shows every year that that’s not the case,” says Fybush, who has worked in radio and television news for more than two decades. The calendar began in 2002 as an outgrowth of his weekly industry news column, NorthEast Radio Watch, and its offshoot, “Tower Site of the Week,” a weekly feature at his fybush.com website.
“It has developed a passionate following in the broadcast engineering community,” Fybush says. “Engineers are notoriously underappreciated for the hard work they do, and the calendar is one little way I can help show some recognition for the infrastructure that engineers design and maintain to make sure all of us have easy access to radio, TV and our cellphones, too.”
The 2013 edition, now shipping from the Fybush Media store (store.fybush.com/store) features a fresh new page design, a spiral binding, and 13 new pictures taken from Fybush’s travels all over North America and beyond. Some of the highlights this year:
- The Sandia Peak TV/FM antenna farm high above Albuquerque, New Mexico. At more than 10,000 feet above sea level, this is the highest-elevation site ever featured in the calendar.
- WFXJ (formerly WJAX), Jacksonville, Florida. This historic site, built in the 1930s, sits amidst the greens of a golf course.
- KWAL, Wallace, Idaho. This unique site features two towers split down the middle by a busy coast-to-coast highway, Interstate 90, as it threads through a narrow valley.
- WVJS, Owensboro, Kentucky. A reminder of the impermanence of broadcast infrastructure, this calendar photo features three towers that were dismantled in 2012 after 65 years at the same site.
- WXXI-TV, Rochester, New York. A dramatic night photo showing a massive crane in action, removing an analog TV antenna from its 400-foot-high perch after the digital television transition made it obsolete.
In addition to tower photos, the calendar’s monthly pages include significant dates in radio and television history, as well as civil and religious holidays.
“Engineers email me all the time to ask if their towers can be a featured site or a calendar page,” says Fybush, who also anchors newscasts for NPR member station WXXI in Rochester, N.Y.
“Engineers email me all the time to ask if their towers can be a featured site or a calendar page,” says Fybush, who also anchors newscasts for NPR member station WXXI in Rochester, N.Y.
HERE'S HOW TO ORDER: The 2013 calendars cost $18.50 each ($19.98 including sales tax for New York State residents) and can be purchased by check (payable to Fybush Media) or money order to 92 Bonnie Brae Avenue, Rochester, N.Y. 14618. Orders can also be placed with major credit cards, or online at www.fybush.com.
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