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Comment by JCM9 | Hacker News Reader

Many small towns still have these telephone microwave towers around if you know what to look for.

The AT&T Long Lines network predates the use of digital radio for telecommunications. It used analog FDM to carry multiple calls. These towers have lasted because they, and the radio equipment, were designed to survive a nuclear war. (Another reason the fiber transition happened quickly was that fiber was more survivable.)

There are many new microwave links being deployed now using modulation techniques for digital data.

Cell carriers often use microwave backhaul as well, particularly when fiber infrastructure is unavailable. These are usually smaller dishes mounted on cell towers, rather than big horn antennas.

Here is a site in downtown Portland OR: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5230331,-122.6802471,3a,75y,...

There is one along the road on my way to work. It's still used, but the microwave horn antennas have been replaced by cellular network antennas.

Where I used to live in East Texas there was one of these, well, at least a few decades ago. Never knew exactly what it was for. But it is a mirror image of the pictures. The things you learn later in life because of the internet.

There is one in Vancouver BC. I always wondered what is is: https://goo.gl/maps/RKVvfiDApVxCWsnj7

The Telus CO downtown at Robson and Seymour used to have a large tower on the roof with 6GHz horns, linked to that site, and towards the site on Bowen Island which still has horns. Bowen Island was a link to the sunshine coast, across to Nanaimo, and many other places.

There is also a big site out in the fraser valley on a hilltop that was part of the long lines network with shots going east towards Hope (trans canada microwave) and down into Whatco County.

Interesting! Thank you for the information. Does the trans Canada microwave go along the coquilhalla highway? I notice that there are point to point links along the side of the highway.

Were the microwave links to Nanaimo and the Sunshine Coast replaced by fiber?

There's submarine fiber to Vancouver island now, in a diverse ring, so yes.

Still is some microwave operational on sunshine coast but not as a primary thing.

Big parts of trans Canada microwave have now been dismantled. There was a mountain top site slightly NE of Hope that could only be reached by its own cable car. And lots of other mountain top sites east of it going all the way to Lethbridge.

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