Body Found Atop Broadcast Tower
It appears that he got to close to one of the antennas. They can emit thousands of watts of energy. It's like being in a microwave oven. The parts of his body with the highest concentration of water heat up first. The mucous membranes such as his eyes and brain would cook. Nasty way to die. Interesting video.
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2008
- Messages
- 61,301
- Location
- Bulgaria
Poor dude, to me this definately sounds like suicide.
I agree. It may be that he intended to jump but was nailed by the radio energy before he could. I have heard of people jumping off of radio towers and that tower looks like it would have been a spectacular way to go.
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2008
- Messages
- 61,301
- Location
- Bulgaria
No offence but America is insane country, it's after all a whole continent. We never get anything close to this here.
Also I read articles that a lot of people jump from the Empite State and the Golden Gate and I watched a video showing a dude jump from the road ontop of the Hoover Dam.
Also I read articles that a lot of people jump from the Empite State and the Golden Gate and I watched a video showing a dude jump from the road ontop of the Hoover Dam.
Your statements are correct up to a point. Different broadcasters transmit at different frequencies and energy levels. It can vary from a thousand watts to megawatts. The frequencies also vary from the AM radio band up to the UHF TV bands. The UHF band is where all digital TV channels are located. It is much closer to the frequencies in microwave ovens which penetrate deeply and are higher in energy. Your friends would not be climbing the tower if the energy level were very high. Usually, maintenance work is done on towers at night when the output energy is lowered because of the increased altitude of the ionosphere which expands wave propagation. TV stations are very high powered because the high frequency signal doesn't propagate as well as lower frequencies.
Your friends may work on hot towers. But, only under certain conditions. I have a friend who used to paint towers for radio stations. He has a interesting scar across his belly where, while painting a hot tower at night, he unexpectedly came across a tiny leak in the waveguide. That was just an FM transmitter. TV broadcasters usually switch to an alternate transmitter and tower when the main tower is being serviced.
Electrocution is also quite possible if he came into physical contact with an exposed waveguide. The transmitters can put out hundreds of volts of potential at high current levels. There are also power lines on the towers for lighting and monitoring equipment. Even the output of a CB radio can burn you and that's only four watts at twelve volts. I know because I used to service them back when they were popular. (Before Meatpie was born.)
WWJ-TV puts out 50,000 watts plus other transmitters share the same tower. A microwave oven is about 1000 watts.
Last edited:
