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Plain, Madison,
Wisconsin
172
TELE-audiovision International— TheWorld‘s Largest Digital TV TradeMagazine
—05-06/2014
Homemade8m
(26-foot)
AntennaTower
Mike Kohl‘s dream has come true;
many antenna lovers dream about hav-
ing their very own tower on which they
could mount their antennas. His prop-
erty is large enough tomake this dream
a reality: it‘s a wooded hill in the fertile
landscape of Wisconsin. All of the lo-
cal license plates identify Wisconsin as
America‘sDairyland.West ofWisconsin‘s
capitol of Madison in the small town of
Plain and directly on themain road is the
hill that goes steeply up. The tower is at
the top of thehill andgreets visitorswith
hismany satellite dishes.
Mike Kohl explains to us how his tower
came about: „When I bought this prop-
erty in 1993 the trees were not as tall as
they are now.“ He had two choices: chop
down trees or erect a tower that would
reachabove the trees.Mikeopted for the
latter choice: „In 2002 my
neighbor helpedme buildmy
tower out of twoold telephone
poles.“ Mike set up three plat-
forms. On the secondplatformhe
installed a bench. „I sit here quite
often in the summer and look over all
the green that‘s aroundme, listen to the
bird singing and sit with my dishes.“ A
real dream!
Mike is one of the few who managed
to gain experience in satellite recep-
tion before satellite TV even existed. „I
joined theAir Force in 1973. It was there
that I learnedhow to install satellite sys-
tems.“ He was stationed in Alaska. Af-
ter 13 years in the military he left the
service and stayed in Alaska. This was
coincidentally around the same time that
thefirst satelliteTV channels startedap-
SatelliteDXerMikeKohl, USA
DXer REPORT
Mike canoftenbe foundsittingon thebenchon theantenna
tower's secondplatform taking in theviewof natureall around
him - andof coursehismany satellitedishes.
pearing. „You needed a 6-7meter (20-23
foot) diameter dish in order to receive
these channels in Alaska.“ Back then no-
body really knew how to install satellite
antennas. That was Mike‘s chance: he
acquired the dishes and the installation
material and began installing the first
antennas for satellite TV in Alaska.
After the initial golden years as a sat-
ellite installer came to an end, hemoved
to other parts of the country.
In 1977 he worked for a company in
California as a communications techni-
cian for satellite and cable and in 1991
