Farnsworth Peak is a peak located on the northern end of the Oquirrh Mountain range, approximately south west of

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. The mountain is named for Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of the first completely electronic

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

. It is used mainly for radio and television transmission, but could potentially become part of a ski resort owned by nearby Kennecott Land. On the eastern side of the mountain, the land is completely private, and access is restricted. The peak can be reached by hiking from the

Tooele Tooele ( ) is a city in Tooele County in the U.S. state of Utah. The population was 35,742 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Tooele County. Located approximately 30 minutes southwest of Salt Lake City, Tooele is known for Tooele Ar ...

side, which is mostly public land. The

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's ...

land extends from Ridge Peak west to the base of the mountain. Public access to this land is available off SR-36 near Lake Point. Several cattle gates need to be opened and closed, but are access roads to hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding areas.

Radio and television use

Farnsworth Peak, in local radio terms, refers to three separate radio transmitter sites. They are known as "Big Farnsworth," "The KSTU Site," and "Little Farnsworth." Each site hosts a number of transmission towers which broadcast

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

and

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ea ...

s. Extensive studies of RF radiation from the site were conducted in 2003 in an effort to aid engineers who work on the mountain.

FM Terrestrial stations with transmitters on Farnsworth Peak

Farnsworth Peak contains a vast majority of Salt Lake FM signals. The following is a complete list of FM stations with transmitters located on (or around) Farnsworth Peak.

FM amateur (ham) radio repeaters on Farnsworth Peak

Local television networks

KSL-TV KSL-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is the flagship television property of locally based Bonneville International, the for-profit broadcasting arm of the Church of Jesus Chr ...

, KSTU and other sites on Farnsworth Peak have provided space for

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency commu ...

repeater operation. Farnsworth peak serves as a major hub, connecting western and southern Utah to the Utah Intermountain Intertie main hub repeater a top the Snowbird Tram on Hidden Peak.

Television stations

Farnsworth Peak is home to several full service television stations.

is perhaps the best known transmitter site on the mountain, but the peak houses transmitters for KSTU-TV, the local FOX affiliate,

KUCW KUCW (channel 30) is a television station licensed to Ogden, Utah, United States, broadcasting the CW network to Salt Lake City and the state of Utah. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside ABC affil ...

(The CW), and

KUTV KUTV (channel 2) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside independent station KJZZ-TV (channel 14) and St. George–licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate K ...

(CBS) among others.

KTMW KTMW (channel 20) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language Telemundo network to the state of Utah. Owned and operated by NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group, the station maintains studio ...

, an independent station and

KUPX KUPX-TV (channel 16) is a television station licensed to Provo, Utah, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to Salt Lake City and the state of Utah. It is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Co ...

, the local Ion affiliate, now broadcast their digital signals from Little Farnsworth Peak about 0.45 miles to the south. KSL-TV was the first television station to use the mountain for broadcasting. It also is responsible for transmitters on the mountain, having engineers on site for periods of time in case of emergencies. A large number of the television stations located on the peak previously carried their analog signals from the same sites. Farnsworth Peak was one of the first places in the

to construct a facility specifically for digital television transmission. Specifically, Farnsworth Peak houses transmitters for the following stations:

Lightning incident

On September 13, 2009, lightning struck the tower carrying a majority of the area's

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...

signals. The lightning strike took eight stations in total off the air, and damaged the combiner for the tower. According to the engineers on site, the combiner was leaking oil. The lightning strike of the tower also caused a failure of the waveguide switch control system, which caused it to display improperly. A waveguide switch is part of the transmission circuitry. An engineer on site was able to correct that situation within hours, but the combiner would not be working for a few more hours. By the next day, the problem had been fixed and the stations were back on the air and all were in working order.

2020 Salt Lake City Earthquake

On March 18, 2020, a 5.7 magnitude

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

occurred north-northeast of

Magna, Utah Magna ( ) is a metro township in Salt Lake County, Utah, United States. The current population of the township stands at 29,251 according to the 2020 census, a 10.4% increase over 26,505 in 2010. History Settlement Settlement of the area beg ...

, west of Farnsworth Peak. A number of radio and television stations experienced interruptions after power was lost on the mountain, but were able to return to air within seconds. Farnsworth Peak has generators for emergencies.

References

External links

{{SLC TV , state=collapsed Mountains of Utah Mountains of Salt Lake County, Utah Mountains of Tooele County, Utah Mass media in Salt Lake City