What happened to the old analog TV transmitters?

[julianburke]

Here in Knoxville, Channel 10 gave me their RCA TT50's (2 transmitters and had to uninstall them) and of the 6000 lbs (each cabinet weighed about 1000 lbs) mostly went for junk. I wanted to save one but had no where to put it but I stripped out all porcelain tube sockets, bus lines as well as all tubes and all RCA logos and data plates and the meters that were on the top front. I hated that but should have saved at least one cabinet. They were beautifully made with no rivets, all nuts and bolts for serviceability.

What was really funny and to see the monkey dance, was a huge pile of solid copper transmission line, cavities and combiner scrap about 5 feet high and about 12 feet in diameter. The old transmitters had to be removed as the space was being remodeled and when a new worker/contractor/block mason would come in and saw this huge pile of copper, their eyes would get this BIG and always ask what we were going to do with it. I would tell them that we could use help to put it in the dumpster and I couldn't do it all by myself!! Tee Hee Hee!!! Their expressions at that point was worth the price of a ticket!! The copper brought about $8000 scrap and was divided among the engineers for all the extra work.