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Saturday, March 08, 2014

RIVER ROAD TV TOWER EXCEEDING LIGHT POLLUTION REGULATIONS AGAIN IN BETHESDA

The lowest flashing bulb on the TV tower behind McDonald's on River Road is going crazy again. It's been 48 hours now. This happened last year, and went on for weeks. Finally, I called the tower's owner, Crown Castle. They promised to fix it, and within a couple of weeks, it was corrected. And that was actually the second malfunction, since the tower converted from red to white lights years ago.

Now it's happening again. I received a complaint a number of days ago via comment from a reader; however, when I checked at that time, it did not seem to be malfunctioning. Perhaps it depends which direction you are standing in relation to the tower. But it's going nuts for sure now, and once again, it simply exceeds any reasonable light pollution limits.

I'll have to call them again, apparently. This is ridiculous. They need to make a permanent fix - or better yet, join the other 90% of towers in America, and use the red lights that don't have this problem (the River Road tower uses white flashing lights). Red lights are the industry standard. Does anyone know what federal entity regulates lights on broadcast towers?
This is how the bulbs are
supposed to look at night

at

1 comment:

  1. Oona Houlihan1:56 PM

    In Europe I believe red lights are the standard. Anything else sends a wrong signal and could be mistaken for a plane etc. If they have no real reason to flash white lights (advertising - again there's rules for that too), then red lights are actually safer for them too. The way this thing looks, a foreign pilot might well crash into it misinterpreting the signs.

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