West Mountain is a mountain in

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

that is located southwest of the city of Provo, and west of the community of

Benjamin Benjamin ( ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the younger of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel, and Jacob's twe ...

. It is home to a

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

for KTCE, an FM station licensed to Payson and operating on 92.1

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

. The mountain is also home to various FM radio translators and an observatory used by students from

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...

(BYU). It can be accessed from a main road that starts near Benjamin. A small census designated place east of the mountain is known as West Mountain as well.

Geology

West Mountain's highest point is at . The radio station tower sits on the second-highest point on the mountain, about 2 miles north of the true summit. The mountain is on the southern segment of the

Wasatch Range The Wasatch Range ( ) or Wasatch Mountains is a mountain range in the western United States that runs about from the Utah-Idaho border south to central Utah. It is the western edge of the greater Rocky Mountains, and the eastern edge of the Gr ...

, though it is not connected to the main range. The mountain is located on the southern shore of

Utah Lake Utah Lake is a shallow freshwater lake in the center of Utah County, Utah, United States. It lies in Utah Valley, surrounded by the Provo- Orem metropolitan area. The lake's only river outlet, the Jordan River, is a tributary of the Great Sa ...

Radio uses

The following are

translators Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

and radio stations located on the mountain (in order of frequency): * K202CC-88.3 FM, from parent station KAWZ-FM * K204BO-88.7 FM, from parent station

KUSU-FM KUSU-FM (91.5 FM), known as Utah Public Radio, is an NPR-member radio station. It airs NPR programs, plus classical and folk music. Licensed to Utah State University in Logan, Utah, it broadcasts as Utah Public Radio on a series of 30 translat ...

. * K208BZ- 89.1 FM from parent station

KBYU-FM KBYU-FM (89.1 MHz) is a classical music radio station run by Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. It is known on-air as Classical 89. It is a production of BYU Radio. It transmits at an effective radiated power of 32 kW. Its transmi ...

. * KTCE-92.1-FM, a smooth jazz format station licensed to Payson, Utah. Currently off the air * K252DB-98.3 FM, from parent station KEGH. * K260DS-99.9 FM, rebroadcasting KWLO 1580 AM. As well as radio stations, the mountain houses several cellular telephone transmitters providing service for

AT&T Wireless AT&T Mobility, LLC, also known as AT&T Wireless and marketed as simply AT&T, is an American telecommunications company. Formed in April 2000 as Cingular Wireless LLC, It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Inc. and provides wireless serv ...

Verizon Wireless Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the div ...

and

T-Mobile T-Mobile is the brand of telecommunications by Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telec ...

. The mountain also contains towers for local emergency services, and state and federal government services. An older tower, once operated by

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

, is known more commonly as a " Long Line" tower, and was used for microwave communications is located on the north summit. It is the tallest tower on the mountain, and is the most predominant feature. With the invention of

fiber optics An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

, the use of these towers gradually declined, and other similar towers have fallen into disrepair. This particular "long lines" tower, is connected to other towers in Riverton, Utah and Levan, Utah. A ham radio repeater, known as WA7FFM is located on the mountain as well.

Observatory

West Mountain Observatory, which is operated by nearby BYU, is located just southwest of the north summit of West Mountain. It was constructed for the astronomy department of BYU in 1981 and houses three telescopes.

Access

West Mountain road, which leads to the north summit, begins on Lincoln Beach road, directly northeast of the north summit. It is a winding road, which may or may not be in good condition, depending on the season. Those wishing to access the mountain are suggested to use

four wheel drive The Four Wheel Drive Auto Company, more often known as Four Wheel Drive (FWD), was a pioneering American company that developed and produced all-wheel drive vehicles. It was founded in 1909 in Clintonville, Wisconsin, as the Badger Four-Wheel Dr ...

vehicles.West Mountain RTLI info
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References

External links

{{commons category, West Mountain (Utah County, Utah)

West Mountain Observatory
Mountains of Utah Mountains of Utah County, Utah Wasatch Range