AT&T built scads of microwave relay towers in the 1950s and 60s to create a long-distance telecommunications system called the Long Lines network. It’s been decades since they were last used for that purpose, but many towers still stand. One is near Glenwood, Indiana.
Phone companies originally connected distant cities by running cable. It was expensive, so AT&T designed an experimental microwave network called TDX in 1947. Three years later, the company rolled out an improved technology called TD-2 that became the basis for its Long Line towers.
It appears as though AT&T’s Glenwood tower was built in 19521. The 161-foot tall structure2 connected a tower in Greenfield twenty-nine miles west with another thirty miles east in New Hope, Ohio3.
Geostationary satellites, improved fiber optics, and digital networks spelled the end of the Long Lines program in the 1980s. After AT&T was broken up, a successor company sold the Glenwood tower in 20004. Despite the sale, the structure retains its fan-shaped KS-15676 horn antennae and a pair of rounder SHX10As.
Today, the tower is used by Indiana Paging Network4.
Sources Cited
1 Fayette County Office of Information & GIS Services. (2023). Parcel ID: 21-04-35-200-002.000-012. Fayette County, Indiana Assessor. map, Connersville, IN.
2 Transmitter Characteristics (n.d.). Antennasearch. Web. Retrieved November 20, 2023.
3 Long Lines Map and Information (n.d.). Web. Map. Retrieved November 14, 2023.
4 (See footnote 1).
5 (See footnote 2).
Reread your text. I don’t think New Hope, OH can be west of Glenwood or Greenfleld east. Good article otherwise.
Howard Pletcher
Absolutely right. I appreciate it!