Piece of Lethbridge history dismantled

It was never expected to last 64-years, particularly in the kind of weather we have in Southern Alberta. But, when it was dismantled last Saturday, it looked as pristine as the day it was installed and still had years of life left.

Unfortunately, it simply became superfluous due to microwaves and fibre technology.

As to why the antenna was special?

It was designed by Andrew Alford, who was born in 1904 in Russia. He immigrated to the U.S. and graduated from the University of California in 1924. He also attended the California Institute of Technology and worked for the Air Navigation Lab Corporation, and the Harvard University Radio Research Lab, et al.

Alford invented a specific broadcast antenna that was known as the Alford loop and founded the Alford manufacturing company in Boston, Massachusetts, which produced not only antennas but, navigation instrumentation. In 1983, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for inventing an antenna system to guide aircraft landings.

He built a specially designed antenna for CBS, which was installed on the Chrysler building and the first Master FM Antenna system in the world designed to allow individual FM stations to broadcast simultaneously from one source, was erected on the Empire State building in New Yor City.

Alford was a genius when it came to pioneering radio and TV antennas, and the quality of his ingenuity could be seen in the 64-year old piece of technology that was dismantled here in Lethbridge. Given our weather, Southern Albertans were lucky the local TV station had one of his antennas atop the local tower. No — not every radio and TV station has one of these antennas.

The Alford company actually used a photograph of the Lethbridge tower and antenna in its 1957 sales brochure.

Photo from Alford brochure of the CJLH antenna when it was installed in September of 1955

Global T.V., which moved to new offices downtown in September, began its life as CJLH in November of 1955, in the location outside the city. Over the years, the Call letters changed to CJOC, CFAC and then CISA, as the ownership changed hands.

It was the winter of 1967 that the quality of that antenna likely saved lives and kept many people safe, at a time when there was no internet and no social media.

A massive snowstorm in late April covered south-east B.C. and Southern Alberta. Streets, farm roads and many highways were impassable, under as much as six feet of snow or more. The people who worked at CJLH had to be transported to the station outside of Lethbridge by the few snow machines that existed and were available.

Most rural dwellers were snowed in and couldn’t get off their properties. While some phone lines were down, the few that remained up were used to pass information to CJLH TV, so that messages could be broadcast over the air, indicating who was safe, who was in trouble and what might be needed by others.

As the city grew out towards the TV station over the decades, the property eventually became part of the city industrial park and was right across the street from a residential area. The guy wires that held the upper section of the tower were within a few feet of the street and creating a safety issue. The tower had to be reduced.

In 1981, the entire antenna was removed from the tower so that the tower height could be lessened. At that time, most antennas would have been replaced. However, when the Alford antenna was inspected by engineers, it was still in perfect working order, so the original 1955 components were placed back on the shortened tower structure, as a back-up transmitter.

Section of tower and attached antenna rests on the ground while the tower is reduced in 1981

When Digital-TV arrived in 2011, some engineers considered the antenna might have been able to handle D-TV but, it was decided to go another route.

CJLH was the first TV station south of Calgary (Calgary and Edmonton TV stations went to air in 1954) and was part of the original Dominion TV network, also known as CBC, which brought the first TV pictures to Southern Alberta.

The Lethbridge antenna also fed a series of rebroadcast transmitters at Burmis, Brooks, Coleman, Waterton Park, and Pincher Creek, which fed homes in those areas, as well as the East Kootenays and Montana. At the request of Corus Entertainment Inc., the CRTC allowed those transmitters to be shut down in June of this year.

With the impending move of the Global studios to downtown Lethbridge and the use of a microwave signal to the D-TV transmitter in Diamond City, the Alford antenna’s days were numbered.

Base of antenna with manufacturers specifications and date of September 1955

What happens to the antenna? A piece of it is destined for another life. But that will be a story for the future.

Small portion of the Alford antenna ready for a new life

——

Postscript:

We offer an ovation to the team of highly skilled and dedicated engineers who, over many decades, maintained the rebroadcast transmitters around the region, transmitters at Diamond City and Nanton and monitored the Lethbridge tower to make sure Lethbridge and Southern Alberta received news and entertainment. (Ron Jovenazzo, Bill Lockett, Larry Modney, John Shaw, Ross Wells).

Also, a shout-out to all the ‘nerves-of-steel’ tower climbers, who take their lives into their hands maintaining towers everywhere.

by Dori Modney

Piece of Lethbridge history dismantled

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