Radio antenna directly west of Pelham across the Connecticut River?

Submitted by DocWatson42 t3_1020hws in massachusetts

Greetings and felicitations. When I'm driving west on Amherst Road in Pelham at night I see the aircraft warning light of a large radio antenna directly west of me. I'm too far north for it to be one of those on Mount Tom and there are none (that I know of in that precise direction east of the Connecticut River. Williamsburg and Worthington seem to be the best bets, but Google isn't being very helpful. Does anyone have any ideas?

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UniWheel t1_j2sfof5 wrote

What does it look like in the daytime?

There's a radome on a hilltop on the UMass campus that you might be pointed to at times, though that's not really very far above terrain.

But there's also a north/south run of power lines with towers that are tall enough they might require lighting at night.

WHYN's towers rise in a field in Southampton but that doesn't seem to be the direction you're looking in or necessarily even visible given intervening ridges.

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DocWatson42 OP t1_j2tv2pu wrote

>What does it look like in the daytime?

It's far enough away that I can't see it. I can only see the light—which, now that I think about it, puts it farther away than the two antennas in the Pelham–Belchertown hills are from Rt. 116 (at that stretch, South Pleasant Street) in Amherst. (They're visible over Amherst College's wildlife sanctuary's meadow.) The northern one is a cell tower near the intersection of Amherst Road and Rt. 202 in Pelham, while the southern one is WFCR's transmitter (as well as that of WAMH at Amherst college).

>There's a radome on a hilltop on the UMass campus that you might be pointed to at times, though that's not really very far above terrain.

I believe you're thinking of the observatory on the rise/ridge between Orchard Hill and Sylvan (PDF).

>But there's also a north/south run of power lines with towers that are tall enough they might require lighting at night.

I've paralleled them on Rt. 116 and crossed under them on east–west roads and never seen a light.

>WHYN's towers rise in a field in Southampton but that doesn't seem to be the direction you're looking in or necessarily even visible given intervening ridges.

That's very true. The view is directly west and very constricted by the trees lining the road.

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UniWheel t1_j2uxw8x wrote

>I believe you're thinking of the observatory on the rise/ridge between Orchard Hill and Sylvan

No, I was referring to the radome that sits atop a tower between the two sections of Lot 49 near East Pleasant Street.

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DocWatson42 OP t1_j2v5nyw wrote

Oh, that. I would think that the water tank more prominent, both in diameter and height, but that both are too far north of Main Street/Pelham Road/Amherst Road to be easily seen through that break in the trees.

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rayslinky t1_j2r7cnc wrote

Try searching the FCC ASR: https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/AsrSearch/asrRegistrationSearch.jsp

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DocWatson42 OP t1_j2ufgom wrote

Thank you for that, though the only ones I come up with are a cell phone tower in Hatfield and a canceled tower in Worthington. :-/ Unless there's another structure of that height in the area. Perhaps one of the warning lights on McGuirk Stadium at UMass?

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DocWatson42 OP t1_j3psizu wrote

> Perhaps one of the warning lights on McGuirk Stadium at UMass?

I checked tonight, and I think the light is actually is from the stadium, though I am not absolutely certain. The stadium has several of that type, and it is directly west of the north end of Jones Road.

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