Tower Lights Working

[freqhunter]

Every evening at least once on 2nd and again on 3rd shift a North Ridgeville Police Officer will report to dispatch that “tower lights working” or “any one get tower lights”. I monitor all of Lorain County and a good bit of western Cuyahoga. I never hear any other department make comments on tower lights. Why would North Ridgeville be so concerned of theirs?

 

[SLWilson]

Tower Lights...

Generally, most towers have an alarm to alert tower owners of a light failure.

Possibly they do NOT have an alarm....The FAA goes NUTS if there is a tall tower and the lights aren't working correctly. It becomes a danger to air traffic.

Just wondering, is there an airport near the tower you describe?

Steve/KB8FAR

 

[freqhunter]

Tower Lights

Yes, Cleveland Hopkins is maybe 15 miles away. Depending on the runway used North Ridgeville is under an approach & depart route. I figured it was something to do with the airport.

 

[jim202]

It's not that the FAA just goes nuts, there are some hefty fines if tower lighting has
failed and the FAA is not notified that the lights are out. If you read the fine print,
it says that you have 15 minutes to make the call and file an official notification
after the light went out.

Any tower that is 200 feet tall and higher has to be lit. The height will determine just
what number of lights and where they will be located on the tower. This is why many
of the cellular companies have installed towers that are only 195 feet tall. They don't
need to have any lights on them unless they are near an airport and have the light
requirement as part of their tower registration from the FAA.

This 200 foot height is rather specific on the overal height above ground. Like if you
have a 2 foot high foundation sticking out of the ground with a 198 foot tower on the
foundation, your now 200 feet above the ground. You are required to light the tower.

As was stated before, not all agencies have auto light failure alarms. So a visual
check of the tower lights is required. A log of the visual check must be maintained.
So what your hearing is the reporting of the tower lights being on so the dispatcher
can make a note in the log of the condition of the tower lights for their radio tower.

 

[Tfitzmaurice89]

It's not that the FAA just goes nuts, there are some hefty fines if tower lighting has
failed and the FAA is not notified that the lights are out. If you read the fine print,
it says that you have 15 minutes to make the call and file an official notification
after the light went out.

Any tower that is 200 feet tall and higher has to be lit. The height will determine just
what number of lights and where they will be located on the tower. This is why many
of the cellular companies have installed towers that are only 195 feet tall. They don't
need to have any lights on them unless they are near an airport and have the light
requirement as part of their tower registration from the FAA.

This 200 foot height is rather specific on the overal height above ground. Like if you
have a 2 foot high foundation sticking out of the ground with a 198 foot tower on the
foundation, your now 200 feet above the ground. You are required to light the tower.

As was stated before, not all agencies have auto light failure alarms. So a visual
check of the tower lights is required. A log of the visual check must be maintained.
So what your hearing is the reporting of the tower lights being on so the dispatcher
can make a note in the log of the condition of the tower lights for their radio tower.

Not to get off topic, but have you ever been to disney world... the castle at majic kingdom does not have lights on it because it is not 200 feet tall. I remember watching this on the travel channel where they made it an optical allusion and used small bricks to make it look bigger. Its kinda cool... but thats enough of me and my ADD.

 

[EngineerZ]

It's not that the FAA just goes nuts, there are some hefty fines if tower lighting has
failed and the FAA is not notified that the lights are out. If you read the fine print,
it says that you have 15 minutes to make the call and file an official notification
after the light went out.

Any tower that is 200 feet tall and higher has to be lit. The height will determine just
what number of lights and where they will be located on the tower. This is why many
of the cellular companies have installed towers that are only 195 feet tall. They don't
need to have any lights on them unless they are near an airport and have the light
requirement as part of their tower registration from the FAA.

Don't want to split hairs here, but the tower registration is with the FCC, not FAA. The FAA will conduct a study and determine if a proposed tower is an air navigation hazard as well as the type of lighting required, but much of the enforcement has been delegated to the FCC. This was done since the FCC can not only levy fines, but also yank the transmitter license in cases where the licensee is especially negligent in maintaining lights and paint. The FCC set up the tower registration process a dozen years ago when they took this enforcement responsibility on... Part 17 is an entire chapter of the FCC rules set up specifically for marking and lighting of antenna structures. IIRC, this all came about because of a particular nasty crash of a helicopter into a Sprint tower in the early-to-mid '90s.

Believe it or not, §17.47(a)(1) of the rules still allows for visual observation of tower lighting once every 24 hours. You'd think in this day and age a tower owner would be required to have some sort of alarming to warn them immediately when the lights go out, but having someone drive by once a night to look at them is still perfectly acceptable...

BTW, §17.48(a) of the FCC regs gives the tower owner 30 minutes to correct the failure or notify the FAA. I don't know the FAA regs as well to know if this conflicts with a 15 minute time specified by the FAA, but since the FCC enforces the rules for antenna structures, 30 minutes is the one most tower owners need to worry about.

--z

 

[SLWilson]

Correct...

Don't want to split hairs here, but the tower registration is with the FCC, not FAA. The FAA will conduct a study and determine if a proposed tower is an air navigation hazard as well as the type of lighting required....
--z

You are very correct...However, the light FAILURE must be reported to the FAA immediately, not the FCC....

No use to call the FCC in the middle of the night. They aren't home. The FAA notifies the control towers in the area of the tower hazard of the light failure.

Steve/KB8FAR

 

[EngineerZ]

You are very correct...However, the light FAILURE must be reported to the FAA immediately, not the FCC....

No use to call the FCC in the middle of the night. They aren't home. The FAA notifies the control towers in the area of the tower hazard of the light failure.

Steve/KB8FAR

Look at what I wrote again. I was talking about notifying the FAA. §17.48(a)(1) is about notifying the FAA not the FCC. Furthermore, you're wrong about having to notify them immediately. I went and looked up the appropriate FAA reg to see if it jibed with the corresponding FCC reg and it does... §23(b) of FAA Circular AC 70/7460-1K states:

b. Any failure or malfunction that lasts more than thirty (30) minutes and affects a top light or flashing obstruction light, regardless of its position, should be reported immediately to the appropriate flight service station (FSS) so a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) can be issued.

So the FAA gives you up to 30 minutes to report the outage, just like the FCC. How you are supposed to accomplish this if you do not maintain an alarm system to let you know the tower lights are out is beyond me. It seems that North Ridgeville is leaving themselves open for an enforcement action by only visually verifying the lights one or two times per night rather than continuously monitoring.

--z

 

[SLWilson]

You're correct !

Look at what I wrote again. I was talking about notifying the FAA. §17.48(a)(1) is about notifying the FAA not the FCC. Furthermore, you're wrong about having to notify them immediately. I went and looked up the appropriate FAA reg to see if it jibed with the corresponding FCC reg and it does... §23(b) of FAA Circular AC 70/7460-1K states:

So the FAA gives you up to 30 minutes to report the outage, just like the FCC. How you are supposed to accomplish this if you do not maintain an alarm system to let you know the tower lights are out is beyond me. It seems that North Ridgeville is leaving themselves open for an enforcement action by only visually verifying the lights one or two times per night rather than continuously monitoring.

--z

Sorry, it'd been a long day. My apologies to you! I didn't "see" what I was reading!!!

Steve/KB8FAR

 

[EngineerZ]

Sorry, it'd been a long day. My apologies to you! I didn't "see" what I was reading!!!

Steve/KB8FAR

No sweat... Been there myself.

--z