Legacy -- Mount Lee Television Transmitters, Los Angeles CA
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member Benchmark Blasterz
N 34° 08.075 W 118° 19.236
11S E 378234 N 3777865
The tower farm on Mount Lee, home of the famous Hollywood sign, was the location for TV transmitters in 1931, the early days of television broadcasting in LA. By 1951 all three TV stations at Mount Lee had moved to better sites at Mount Wilson.
Waymark Code: WMVEJT
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 04/08/2017
Published By:Groundspeak Premium Member GeoMaulis
Views: 10

The waymark coordinates are for the NGS benchmark EW7273 Hollywood Civil Defense Radio Tower, on top of Mt Lee.

From Wikipedia: (visit link)

"Mount Lee is a peak in the Santa Monica Mountains, located in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California, USA. The famous Hollywood Sign is located on its southern slope. A good view of it can be had by driving north up Gower Street from Hollywood Boulevard to see the sign directly ahead, and then north along Beachwood Drive. One can also take Franklin Ave. directly to Beachwood; this is the location of the Hollywoodland suburb for which the sign was created.

The original unnamed peak was one of the "three sisters" along with Cahuenga and Burbank peaks, the current flattened top being a result of silent movie pioneer Mack Sennett's unfulfilled plans to build an elaborate home on the property. . . . The mountain is named after early Los Angeles car dealer and radio station owner Don Lee. Lee, a one-time bicycle shop owner who became a protégé of Los Angeles pioneer businessman Earle C. Anthony, purchased his Los Angeles radio station KHJ from Chandler in 1927.

Four years later Lee began experimenting with television using call letter W6XAO. Studios were on the seventh floor of a building at Seventh and Bixel near his Cadillac dealership. Within a short time the transmitter was moved atop what is now called Mount Lee.

An early reference to this name is in a June 1939 article in a magazine published by the California Chamber of Commerce: “Lee has bought a 20-acre site on a mountain top at the eastern boundary of Griffith Park, widening the transmission field of the Don Lee equipment to take in new thousands of homes in the Hollywood hills and the San Fernando Valley. The site is one and a half times higher than the top floor of the Empire State Building in New York. Mount Lee is thus the highest television location in the world. The transmitter is being rebuilt for installation on the mountain.”

. . . Lee was the first of what would become three active pre-World War II Los Angeles television pioneers. The others were Paramount Studios' W6XYZ (later called KTLA) and Lee’s mentor Earle C Anthony's W6XEA (later called KSEE, KFI-TV, KHJ-TV and now operating as KCAL). Lee's W6XAO eventually became KTSL – standing for Thomas S. Lee, who had succeeded to his father’s position when Don Lee died in 1934. KTSL was purchased by CBS in 1950 and became KNXT, today's KCBS-TV.

[Lee and other pioneers]recognized that television signals from Mount Lee and similar points were inadequate to reach the greater Los Angeles basin. They needed a point overlooking the entire area. . .

. . . Los Angeles television pioneers were scouting out a more suitable location. Television experimentation was slowed considerably during the war but post-war preparations continued. The new site was code named “Mt. Anthony” in KFI-AM house organs of the day. After hostilities ended it turned out that Mt. Anthony was really Mt. Wilson – which is now the site of most Los Angeles FM and television stations due to its superior height.

Mount Lee continues to be the site of various non-commercial radio activities, but television transmissions ceased from that location in October, 1951."

Also from Wikipedia, more on Lee's experimental station that became KCBS-TV: (visit link)

"KCBS-TV is one of the oldest television stations in the world. It was signed on by Don Lee Broadcasting, which owned a chain of radio stations on the Pacific Coast, and was first licensed by the Federal Radio Commission, forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission as experimental television station W6XAO in June 1931.

The station went on the air on December 23, 1931, and by March 1933 was broadcasting programming one hour each day only on Monday through Saturdays. The station used a mechanical camera which broadcast only film footage in an 80-line image, but demonstrated all-electronic receivers as early as 1932. It went off the air in 1935, and then reappeared using an improved mechanical camera producing a 300-line image for a month-long demonstration in June 1936. By August 1937, W6XAO had programming on the air six days each week. Live programming started in April 1938.

By 1939, with the image improved to 441 lines, an optimistic estimate of the station's viewership was 1,500 people in a few hundred homes. Many of the receiver sets were built by television hobbyists, though commercially made sets were available in Los Angeles. The station's six-day weekly schedule consisted of live talent four nights, and film two nights.

By 1942, there were an estimated 400–500 television sets in the Los Angeles area, with Don Lee Broadcasting placing television receivers at the following public places: Wilshire Brown Derby, Kiefer's Pine Knot Drive-In, Vine St. Brown Derby, Griffith Planetarium, Miramar Hotel (Santa Monica), Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and The Town House on Wilshire Blvd.

During World War II, programming was reduced to three hours, every other Monday. The station's frequency was switched from Channel 1 to Channel 2 in 1945 when the FCC decided to reserve Channel 1 for low-wattage community television stations. The station was granted a commercial license (the second in California, behind KTLA) as KTSL on May 6, 1948, and was named for Thomas S. Lee, the son of Don Lee. The station became affiliated with the DuMont Television Network later that year. . . .

CBS acquisition

Starting in 1949, CBS had been affiliated with KTTV (channel 11), a station in which the network held a 49% minority ownership stake.

Don Lee's broadcasting interests were placed for sale in 1950 following the death of Thomas S. Lee. General Tire and Rubber agreed to purchase all of Don Lee's stations, the centerpiece being KHJ radio, but chose to spin-off KTSL to CBS.

Susbsquently CBS sold its share in KTTV to the station's majority partner, the Los Angeles Times, and all CBS programming moved to KTSL on January 1, 1951. On October 28, 1951, KTSL changed its callsign to KNXT to coincide with CBS' Los Angeles radio outlet, KNX (1070 AM). The station also moved its transmitter from Mount Lee, where it had been based since its experimental days, to Mount Wilson."
Call signs/Frequencies/Channels/Broadcaster:
W6XAO/KTSL-TV/KCBS-TV/DT, Channel 2


URL reference to transmitter tower/antenna: [Web Link]

Opening hours visitors platform:
none


Backup transmitter tower/antenna: no

Legacy transmitter tower/antenna: yes

URL Webcam: Not listed

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Benchmark Blasterz visited Legacy -- Mount Lee Television Transmitters, Los Angeles CA 04/10/2017 Benchmark Blasterz visited it