RF safety? What’s that? WMBM-AM’s tower.

No no of course not, you can’t burn things with RF unless they’re inside the microwave.

Presenting WMBM-AM, Miami Beach, Florida.

The tower stands in a courtyard behind Radio Bar. The courtyard is fully enclosed. Except…….. The bar uses it as an entrance and exit and storage area and leaves it open to the public.

Sorry for blur in these images, I was unable to stop laughing.

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Pretty hallway.

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To the right just inside.

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To the left just inside.

Note that this tower is not on insulators. It is [barely – see below] grounded. The transmitter output goes to a three wire skirt that starts well up out of reach and is fed by, uh, let’s visit that later

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Kinda sorta ground. One small wire, about 6 gauge.

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See that red square? That’s the transmitter output. Right there. It’s like seven feet up in that corner. You can see the two pipes in the photo above. Only a chain and defaced warning sign (not even a standard RF exposure warning sign) separate bar guests and that.

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Possibly remains of an older feed to the tower…. even more exposed.

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No, the tower lights don’t work.

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Dafuq?!

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This has apparently been how it’s stood for years.

On a side note, here’s an at&t installation. The old vault is on a berm above ground to protect it from storm surge. The VRAD, used to supply PooVerse I mean UVerse television, internet, and kind of sort of phone, not so much.

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You’re, uh, welcome.

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