Downtown Teleport.

[Guest Plastic]

Houston as I know has one teleport. It's out near MIssouri City out McHard Rd starting around S.Post Oak.

Incase you don't know that's that large collection of anttenaes out 2234. They flash at night. They are where TV,Radio stations, and anyone twanting to beam up, out, or down information does it.

This would be good cept HOuston teleport is about 20 miles out. FOr most users this could be ok except for televison and radio. Broadcast signals go out the same distance on each side of the anttenae. SO if the anttenae is 20 miles sothwest of the city then there will be extra people recieving the signal 20 miles out of the area while people will be cut short by about 20 miles on The Northeast side.

There's an easy way to solve this. Why not put all the anttenaes Downtown. You'd be at a central point so the signal goes out the same distance all directions and you'd have to put them on the buildings so you would get mroe range cause the anttenaes are up high. The buidign owners could charge rent which they shouldn't mind.

If the 3 major citites in Texas did that we could perhaps have all of Eastern Texas covered in signals.

[MexAmerican_Moose]

when i first read th title i was thinking about how you wanted people to teleport from one place to another using teleportation!!!

[Talbot]

Me too. And then I opened it and read we already had atleast one teleport in Houston. But nvm.

[TJones]

There is a specific reason why the antennaes are out there in Missouri City. Hurricanes have a nasty effect on Radio Towers, and you cant tie them down as well on top of buildings in Houston. Yes of course the higher the tower the better signal coverage you get.........wait a second , isn't there a thread about this specific thing already. Can someone please find it and merge these 2. Thanks !

[Houston1stWordOnTheMoon]

How much noise do those things put out? When they were placed there, the area was not developed. Is it developed now?

[MexAmerican_Moose]

^^there is probably sprawl up the ass out there by now...

[DaTrain]

Why not just move to somewhere within five miles of Downtown Houston, like somewhere south of Loop 610 South Loop since that part is wholly undeveloped. It's not centralized but its halfway to central. That way the signal for each tv and radio station can be equally distributed the exact same 100 miles of coverage. Then maybe Houston can have something like San Francisco's Sutro Tower, on top of JHC in Chicago, ESB in NYC or somewhere in the Santa Monica Mountains in LA. How bout dat?

[editor]

The towers out in Missouri City are not a teleport. They are an antenna farm. These are two different things.

For more on why having TV transmitters in downtown Houston would be a bad thing, I'll quote myself from elsewhere on HAIF:

Actually, CBD is the worst place for TV signals. Buildings cause horrible multipath (ghosting) problems on analog television. It's one of the big reasons for getting HDTV in urban areas. The reason cities like New York and Chicago have their TV antennae in the CBD is because that's where the tallest buildings are, so it makes economic sense. When TV started taking off, New York already had the Empire State Building, so it made sense to put their transmitters there. Just like in LA and San Francisco they take advantage of the terrain and put their tower on top of tall hills -- it makes economic sense, and multipath issues are reduced significantly.

At the time the Houston TV stations started putting up their towers there were no huge skyscrapers to piggyback on, so they built stand-alone towers on the outskirts of the city. They were built to the southwest because there was cheap land, and it moved them farther away from other VHF signals in Beaumont and Dallas, so they could increase their signal strength, and hopefully saturate the coast, where it was assumed development would spread.

For more information on TV tower clustering, see this incredibly insightful post written by one of the best looking people in the world.

[Guest Plastic]

Building in the center wouldn't block the signal. If you can pick it up way out southwest building closer to town the building won't block it.

And we do have a big anttenae on a building. 900 Louisiana or The Shell Building has one. It's the marginally tall white building that was built in The 70s.

ANd the thing out SW is a Teleport not Anntenae Farm. That's what the map says.

Edited August 6, 2006 by Plastic

[Rawoody]

Building in the center wouldn't block the signal. If you can pick it up way out southwest building closer to town the building won't block it.

And we do have a big anttenae on a building. 900 Louisiana or The Shell Building has one. It's the marginally tall white building that was built in The 70s.

ANd the thing out SW is a Teleport not Anntenae Farm. That's what the map says.

Actually Plastic the editor is correct. The towers on the south side of McHard road are not the Teleport. The Teleport is the collection of satellite dishes located across the street on the North side of Mchard. The building there is called Houston International Teleport and is owned by Verizon Business.

Now as to placing the towers downtown, you mentioned that the waves radiate out in all directions, but you missed two small details. 1) They do not radiate DOWN as the antennas are Vertical the waves travel horizontally. therefore creating this nice big "null" zone within 15 degrees in diameter from the base of the antenna. So anything in this null zone would poor to no reception (approx 666 ft from center of building) and 2) No antenna radiates in a perfect circle, so there is always one or more sides that radiate better than others. (See http://didier.quartier-rural.org/implic/ra...ifi/sigprop.pdf page 4, figure 3 and 4.)

Plus the towers are 2049 ft tall. In order to put them DT you would have to build the antennas up over 1000' above the height of the towers( JPMorgan, the tallest tower in Houston AND Texas is only 1002 ft tall. )

Then you'll have to either build guy wires to the roofs of the other buildings or down to street level because I believe there is not a way to safely build a 1049 foot self standing tower on top of the existing roof, as I believe the footprint is too small.

[editor]

Building in the center wouldn't block the signal. If you can pick it up way out southwest building closer to town the building won't block it.

And we do have a big anttenae on a building. 900 Louisiana or The Shell Building has one. It's the marginally tall white building that was built in The 70s.

ANd the thing out SW is a Teleport not Anntenae Farm. That's what the map says.

Your map is incorrect.

And the building you are referring to downtown is One Shell Plaza. The mast on top is only used for two-way radios not for broadcasting. In the most recent issue of Cite Magazine there is information on how they wanted to take it down because it's not being used anymore but left it up because it would be too complicated.

You don't know what you're talking about.

[Montrose1100]

The mast on top is only used for two-way radios not for broadcasting. In the most recent issue of Cite Magazine there is information on how they wanted to take it down because it's not being used anymore but left it up because it would be too complicated.

I did not know that. I'm glad they decided to keep it. I think the antenna has become a significant part of the building, and gives it more of an identity. Did they give up (the "complication") back in 2004? I remember there was alot of stuff going on around the top of the building, and I think its listed on emporis (roof/antenna work).