Empirical Earth · Radio & Long-Distance Signals

Tall masts & cell grids — the horizon is the limit

The claim

“If Earth is flat, why such tall masts — and a cell tower every few km?”

What is measured

Line-of-sight VHF/UHF reach is set by the radio horizon, ≈ 4.12·√h(m): a 629 m mast reaches only ~103 km, so coverage takes thousands of transmitters and cell towers, never one giant antenna, and more power cannot see past a curve. (Hams beat that same horizon by bouncing off the ionosphere,.)

What would show this is wrong

a single ground-based VHF transmitter that, given enough power, covers an entire continent line-of-sight; or broadcast and cell coverage that does not depend on antenna height.

Sources

  1. Radio horizon & line-of-sight propagation. VHF/UHF reach is set by the radio horizon, d(km) ≈ 4.12·√h(m) (4/3-Earth model); the ~629 m KVLY-TV mast is among the tallest structures built to e link
  2. GSM cell range & timing advance. In GSM the timing-advance field caps a normal cell near 35 km (63 steps, ~234 µs round-trip delay); extended-range schemes reach ~120 km. timing advance . link
  3. The 4/3 effective Earth radius. Standard atmospheric refraction bends radio waves slightly downward, so radio-horizon and microwave-link calculations model the Earth as a sphere with 4/3 its link
  4. FCC facility records for Chicago FM stations. Effective radiated power and height above average terrain are public licensing data filed with the FCC and mirrored in each station’s Wikipedia link
The full entry, with the working →

This is one card from Empirical Earth, a free reference that states each flat-Earth claim at its strongest and then answers it with sourced measurements. Nothing is for sale and there are no advertisements.