- I worked at a television station years back that was designed in such a way that the lights going up the tower were powered by the separate phases of three phase AC with the one at the top powered from all three combined. This was pretty normal but what the engineer had done was rotate them at every level so that if a phase was dropped you could count the lights and quickly see from a distance that the power wasn't right. 4 lights was good, 3 meant you dropped a phase, and so on. I thought it was a pretty clever way of keeping light on all sides of the tower while being able to tell from a distance that a phase was out.
- > Joe: [...] So whenever there's a project on the tower, it's not unusual to see the guys in some kind of a, what do they call those?
> Jeff: A full ghillie suit? Or I don't know what they're called.
If you see someone up in a tall tower wearing a ghillie suit [0]... that sounds like time to call emergency services while avoiding their line-of-sight. :p
(Perhaps they meant "Hazmat" [1])
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghillie_suit
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazmat_suit
- FAA details the marking and lighting requirements here: https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/advisory_circulars/...
by alex_young
1 subcomments
- I love the narrative storytelling here, but the takeaways seem somewhat obvious.
Lights on towers mean stuff, especially to airplanes.
Lights are required for tall towers, and get this, towers next to airports.
You can guess how tall a tower is by looking at the lights.
- These beacons are also great for navigation. Aeronautical charts usually show the color/pattern of the light. You can use those as points to triangulate your position.
- Slightly off topic: typically, lights of neighboring towers blink asynchronously. But sometimes they are synchronized. Very satisfying. Anyone knows how this works? My best guess is e.g. DCF77. Thoughts?
- that article is incredibly hard to read. Luckily, an AI can summarise it in seconds.
by pizzalife
1 subcomments
- This blog post has a really verbose format.
TLDR; White lights are used during the daytime, red lights at night (less annoying), towers under 200 feet don't need blinking lights.
- In the past year or two they have also added a quick periodic flash of white light for when visibility is low; like a camera flash that happens every few seconds. I think it was added this spring but don't quite remember.
- Related: Some wind turbines apparently only turn on their position lights when there's any aviation traffic nearby (as detected by either local transponder interrogators (possibly ADS-B receivers?) or radar)!
- It's not just radio towers. I've seen aircraft warning lights on tall buildings, particularly those near airports.
see https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-E...
- Changing a radio tower light bulb is not for the weak of heart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b9LahaBJIk
- Blinking the lights also helps prevent bird deaths - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towerkill
- Figured it was something to do with aircraft communications.
I live near an airfield and the runway has flashing white lights at night to help guide the aircraft's.
- Never seen a blinking light on a tower in Norway. Why the difference between countries, can’t be that huge difference risk if some don’t have them?
- At my work we are working on automating NOTAMs when our tower lights go out.
- muuuuch better article, lol
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/what-happens-when-you...
- the towers in my area all switched to LED recently. the slow, glowing blink of the incandescent ones probably isn't as visible as the modern ones, but I do dearly miss seeing it out my window.
- Why do some radio towers NOT blink? Is the better question.
by WalterBright
1 subcomments
- Blinking uses less power.
- To clean their eyes?
by LargoLasskhyfv
0 subcomment
- Flugwarnbefeuerung
by huflungdung
0 subcomment
- [dead]
by comrade1234
3 subcomments
- [flagged]
Hacker News