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These strange photos are from Charles at cmchan@mcione.com.
Charles said, "I am forwarding a scan of a photo of one of the transmitter sites I built for TV stations around the world. This one, the site for 8 million watt WTLK TV-14 in Atlanta was completed in early January, 1991. My father, who is now 80, visited the site on Sunday, February 3, 1991 and took several pictures. This is one of them, shot on a clear, bright morning at about 10 am and 40 degrees using his B&H 1/2 frame camera and Kodak 400 speed film."
The problem is, I have no idea what we're looking at! The view is atop peak number 2 of Bear Mountain (also called Pine Log) facing almost due North. Where the tower base now sits was (until it was removed the day before I first worked there in mid October, 1990) an ancient Indian altar or shrine of some type. The entire area - located between Canton and Cartersville, GA 40 miles north of Atlanta and immediately north of Lake Arrowhead (where I lived) is dotted with mounds and artifacts from the Etowah and Cherokee tribes.
Shown in the picture is the bottom 1/3 of the 800 foot tower. Also shown is the 40 by 100 ft. transmitter building. Near the top of the picture - at the point the paint ends (don't ask...) is an object I cannot identify. I at first thought that it could be some sort of rigging used by the erectors, but their hoists, formerly located in front of the old packing crates to the right of the building, have been removed by the time this was taken. Construction date records bear this out. There would have been no rigging left during those weeks. Months later, the old antenna was side-mounted at this location on the tower.
As this photo was made, the tower had (in this part) only the tower itself (an 8 ft. face Stainless,) the 1500mm aluminum waveguide shown behind the South leg (facing us) inside the tower, and one 7/8 inch elliptical black waveguide for microwave (not visible) attached.
I can honestly say that, though I have tried, I've never experienced any kind of sighting in my 50 years. Indeed, I did not see this until my Dad sent me these pictures some years later. Neither did he when taking the picture. HOWEVER (a BIG "however") I made nearly 1100 trips to this site in four years. This station experienced continued problems out of all usual proportion to the size of the project. The new 14 ton, 77 foot long antenna atop the tower, for example, cracked at its 16 inch base just weeks after being installed in November, 1990. We lost three $28,000 tubes during tune-up, two before going on the air and one ten days after this picture was taken - all for unexplained reasons. People we hired would die before reporting to work, never show up, or leave unexpectedly - even though our studios were 28 miles south and the site shown was unmanned 150 hours per week.
During that time - two months after this picture was taken, I met a woman who was the most beautiful creature I've ever seen. She walked into my life on an April Saturday evening in 1991, seeking shelter from a massive thunderstorm and tornado system that had killed two people a mile away and moments before we met. We stood watching the storm remnants and a double rainbow that followed. This was photographed. We walked back inside the restaurant, became aware of each other and, within days, were madly in love and were married within the year. She visited the site often, always walking the entire peak and lingering longer than I would have liked. I used to pick wild roses for her from the first peak, and take them to her at her work in Marietta where our studios were located. She experienced several strange sensations while there, and while at my condo two thousand feet below this very remote site.
When we moved to Florida in late 1992, a series of misfortunes beset us that continues to this day. It became so intense that - on the afternoon of my last trip to the site in July, 1994 - she moved to the Arizona Desert with her Mom. As she signed her note to me some 400 miles South, I stood for the last time at our studio, outside smoking and looking at the mountains, watching as a July thunderstorm developed. A woman who had worked with us since the beginning, and who also lived at Arrowhead, came out. She asked, "what IS it about this station, Charles?" We went over everything that had gone wrong, up to the Supreme Court ruling that clarified that we were to be given lifesaving Cable TV status - but came too late to save the station. I told her about my last trip, ended only moments before when the Bronco II I'd taken up the rocky path for the last time made it to the first peak, then lost its transmission. I said I had the strangest feeling that I was not meant to have survived that day. I looked at my watch. It was 5:12 pm on Monday, July 11, 1994. I went inside to call my wife, as I always did that time on Mondays after her classes ended. She was no longer there. I have had no contact with her since, other than her brief note. She came and she left in a severe storm.
I have since taken my present girlfriend to the first peak (no longer having access to the second.) We experienced nothing abnormal, but we began the journey back to Florida immediately after and two hours later when we stopped for gas, we noticed dozens of tiny infant-sized hand prints in the fresh clay and granite dust that then covered her car, which had been washed less than two days before. She experienced a series of repetitive dreams for the next six weeks that nearly drove her crazy. When she finally told me of these, I interpreted them for her. She never had another. Now, SHE wants to live at Arrowhead! If she does, it'll be without me! Four years of that Hell was enough! Five years since it ended have shown me to leave well-enough alone.
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