The Bluffton Microwave Tower was a long distance facility with a microwave and coaxial repeating and switching station for telephone and AUTOVON (AUTOmatic VOice Network) traffic.
Jump To:
Status: Abandoned
The Bluffton Long Lines Complex has a self-supporting steel lattice microwave tower with multiple horn-reflector antennas. The site also have three surface support buildings (non-harden), a power substation, three ventilation tunnels, and an underground (harden) building housing the support critical support equipment for the microwave and coaxial links.
Tower Design
The Bluffton tower is also unique in it’s design. The tower’s legs noticeable flair outwards. This is an unusual feature when compared to other AT&T Long Lines facilities. It is possible that the design of the tower legs is to support the weight of the tower it on foundations that are separate from the building below it and straddling the buildings footprint.
FCC Call Sign: KQA82
Coaxial Cable Use
Bluffton was built as a main station on an east-west coaxial-cable route. The adjacent stations on the route are Medina, OH to the east, and Plano, IL to the west.
Taken from Long-Lines.net
A 1970 route map shows a north-south cable, between Toledo and Dayton, crossing the Medina-Plano cable west of Bluffton. A 1979 map shows that the Toledo-Dayton cable had been re-routed to pass through Bluffton.
Both maps show Bluffton having a single microwave radio route, going northwest to Ayersville, OH.
Photographs
