page_title: Antenna farm
section_title: Locations
hierarchical_section_title: Antenna farm / Locations
caption_attribution_description: English: Radio antennas on Mount Wilson, San Gabriel Mountains, CA, in winter. Radio transmitting antennas are often located on the highest geographical point in the area, such as mountain peaks, to give them the maximum transmission range, resulting in antenna farms like this. The vertical rods are mainly whip antennas, often base station antennas used by dispatchers for land mobile radio systems for fire, police, ambulance, taxi, and delivery services. The multiple identical antennas strung in a vertical line along towers are VHF collinear array broadcasting antennas for FM and television stations. It sounded like thunder whenever one of the towers shed a hunk of ice.
context_page_description: Antenna farm or satellite dish farm or just dish farm are terms used to describe an area dedicated to television or radio telecommunications transmitting or receiving antenna equipment, such as C, Kᵤ or Kₐ band satellite dish antennas, UHF/VHF/AM/FM transmitter towers or mobile cell towers. The history of the term "antenna farm" is uncertain, but it dates to at least the 1950s.
  In telecom circles, any area with more than three antennas could be referred to as an antenna farm. In the case of an AM broadcasting station, the multiple mast radiators may all be part of an antenna system for a single station, while for VHF and UHF the site may be under joint management. Alternatively, a single tower with many separate antennas is often called a "candelabra tower".
context_section_description: Where terrain and road access allows, mountaintop sites are very attractive for non-AM broadcast stations and others, because it increases the stations' height above average terrain, allowing them to reach further by avoiding obstructions on the ground, and by increasing the radio horizon. With a clearer line of sight in both cases, more signal can be received.  While the same is true of a very tall tower, like Paris’ Eiffel tower, such towers are expensive, dangerous, and difficult to access the top of, and may collect and drop large amounts of ice in winter, or even collapse in a severe ice storm and/or high winds. Multiple small towers also allow stations to have backup facilities co-located on each other's towers for redundancy.
  Satellite antenna farms are usually located at remote locations, far away from urban development, especially high rise buildings or airplane flight paths, to avoid and minimize disruption to transmission and reception, and so as to not be an eyesore. Although most radio and TV stations are in fierce competition with each other in their broadcast markets, they will often locate their broadcasting antennas very near each other, and in some cases, will even share land or towers with each other, in the interests of space, land availability, and the cost of putting a transmission building on top of a mountain.
caption: Antennas on Mount Wilson, covered in ice
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