Explore Sutro Tower | Hacker News Reader

Explore Sutro Tower

explore.sutrotower.com

84 pointsarchagon27 comments

Sutro Tower's height is boosted by the fact that it sits on Mt. Sutro. It reaches 1,811 feet above sea level, just higher than the tallest building in the US (One World Trade Center in NYC, at 1776 feet).

I like to mention this fun fact to my visiting friends from New York, conveniently overlooking any higher-elevation buildings in Denver.

Am I misreading this or are you giving a measure where a single story house in Nebraska would be taller than Sutro or WTC?

Yeah this makes no sense at all. A tent at base camp Everest is significantly taller.

Hence 'conveniently overlooking'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

What's the point in introducing Nebraska when they already said the same thing about Denver? The point is to be a humorous comparison and it works better than most such comparisons in that regard because the tower is both actually pretty tall itself plus only 3 miles from the ocean.

broadcast facilities in the VHF/TV range bands benefit most from what's called HAAT - height above average terrain. This is why the midwest has 1800' tall guyed broadcast towers in places that don't have any conveniently placed mountains. And why the broadcast sites near Seattle and Vancouver are all on mountains, or at least large-ish sized hills.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_above_average_terrain

The point is that the relative elevation difference is more similar to skyscrapers. You look down from there (or even Twin Peaks) and you are towering over sea level locations and can see extremely far on clear days.

Depends what you’re measuring. Sutro Tower’s prominence[0] is almost certainly greater than the house in Nebraska and probably most of the buildings in Denver too (though possibly there’s some comms equipment or ski infrastructure that could beat it?)

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topographic_prominence

Since it can be commonly viewed from literal sea level (like the shoreline of the ocean or San Francisco Bay), it’s more apropos.

Related Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco (825 points, 12 days ago, 193 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43120582

I hiked up there once… There was a reservoir with a trail around it and, to my surprise, a fenced-off area full of goats. Apparently they were part of a vegetation control program used in the parks there.

That's not unusual! BART and, I believe, Caltrain also use them for vegetation management on their rights-of-way.

Are there others think Sutro Tower is an eyesore or is it just me?

(Very cool app BTW)

#TeamSutro

I wasn't a huge fan when I first moved to SF (thought it looked a bit dystopian), but it's grown on me over the years.

Even when it looks like a floating pirate ship when it's foggy?

I mean--it's iconic. And that's fun. But I'd prefer a natural view rather than a gangly steep thing jutting into the sky. I also don't like the Hollywood sign for the same reason. shrug

*steel

It does have an "alien space ship" vibe to it.

I enjoy that, but I get why others would not.

Pity it isn't blocked by skyscrapers of greater height, but other than that I don't mind it.

Interesting. I find it fascinating how there are always some people who find issues with something.

I don’t mean it in a bad way or something btw. Just an observation, as someone who likes seeing the tower.

My wife gave me a t shirt (from broke @$$ Stuart) that has a picture of Sutro Tower on it, yet says "Coit Tower".

Good stuff

There's probably cool information here but these kind of "interactive" presentations should have stayed in the 90's where they came from. The designers of this app add all kinds of unnecessary navigation and hid everything under tiny sections with only tidbits of info.

Don't treat adults like your content is Sesame Street. Let us read stuff, even long stuff, and give us multiple links (not one button per section) like the web was designed for.

Had our morning coffee yet? :)

The web was explicitly designed with no design. That's like, the whole point man. If you don't like it, there are literally billions of other pages for you to check out and even in this case, a convenient button for you to click to "vote" your displeasure.

People are allowed to like things that don't make sense to you or that you don't like. The fact that diversity exists is what makes the internet beautiful.

I think there is room for innovative presentations/visualizations, but yeah, I have to agree this one just misses the mark. Between the various transitions and fades it takes an annoying amount of time to navigate between pages. The 3D transitions between scenes are flashy but, again, slow and don't really add anything. And they went to all this effort of getting 3D models of the inside, but your camera is fixed in place and can barely even rotate around? And you can't zoom? So all you get is a blurry, murky view. A standard photo album would genuinely have been better.

The 360-degree view from the top is cool, though.

For anyone else who was mostly curious to see the interior shots, Jeff Geerling has a great pair of videos where he and his father go inside a similar broadcast site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_u8x8V4YYs

Reply on news.ycombinator.com