AT&T Microwave Station

Vernal

Site Data

Address: East of Attica, NY

Latitude: Unknown

Longitude: Unknown

Elevation: Unknown

FCC License Data

Unknown

Description

Vernal is one of the rectangular concrete towers built in the early years of AT&T's microwave radio network, before steel lattice towers became the Company's standard antenna-support structures. The tower's construction provided extraordinary resistance to wind-induced movement, important to maintaining orientation of the highly-directional antennas.

A January 1970 Long Lines route map shows radio paths from Vernal going west to Buffalo, NY and northeast to Pinnacle Hill, near Rochester, NY. It is likely that Vernal was an auxiliary (relay) station between those facilities, but it also could have had cable or radio links to local telephone company offices.

The tower, 118 feet tall, housed two types of microwave radio equipment:

Western Electric TD-2, with some units modified for digital service at either 90 or 135 Mb/s.
Raytheon KTR; vacuum-tube units often employed for broadcast-quality video transmission.

Present Function

Vernal was shut down around 1991 and was later sold to American Tower Corporation, a major tower-leasing firm. American Tower is offering the facility for sale; the company has published a site brochure describing the property.

All microwave equipment and waveguide was removed from the building in April 2003.