What You Should Know About High Intensity Tower Lighting

By Steven Foster


Actually, it is risky when tall structures are constructed without fixing systems and lamps that indicate their height more so at night. This is because they can cause collisions with aircrafts. In fact, these accidents have occurred where choppers and planes have collided with tall mountains or hills causing death. This has brought a regulation that any building or structure with a height of about 200 feet or above to be fixed with a signaling lamp as it will help people and pilots on law flying planes to see it. For proper illumination, you need to look for high intensity tower lighting systems.

Towers are simply structures that are tall and their thicknesses are usually un-proportional to their height. However, people often confuse such structures with masts. Masts, however, contain guy-wires used for supporting them. The structures are again distinguished from other buildings since they are usually not intended for residence. Instead, they are used for other functions such as indicating time using clocks.

They can also be built with aerial cameras for security surveillance among other functions. These structures can also be put in place by communications and media service providers for telecommunication purposes. They can also be constructed for tourism and adventure purposes. These structures can also be fixed on top of a building or can be self-supporting.

They can also be used to transmit telecommunication signals and waves. Others can be constructed as adventure and tourist attraction sites. They can also be used on top of other buildings as lightning arrestors. Tower lighting is basically fixing of devices with illumination characteristic on the top of these tall structures, primarily to send information or signal which helps in avoiding collisions from bodies that are low flying.

These lights can be classified into two major types. One, the red lights are the commonly used lighting option. These lights usually follow a format where they go on and off at an interval of three seconds. The cycle continues until when the lamps are switched off. The other type is white xenon discharges and flashes. The white lamps are yet to be widely accepted although their demand continues to rise.

There are other minor types that also exist. These are obstruction lights that will have constant illumination. Red beacons or strobes use bulbs of incandescent filaments and are normally characterized with a short lifespan. Others include high and medium-intensity white strobe lamps. Strobes of medium intensity will be used on buildings with a height of about 250 feet while those with high intensity in buildings with a height of around 700 feet.

The second major type is known as white-xenon discharge or flash. They are lamps whose popularity is still underway but constantly growing. Apart from these two major types, other minor types include, obstruction lights whose red illumination is constant, red strobes and beacons that function as a result of incandescent filaments as well as medium and high-intensity strobe lamps which in most cases produce white illumination.

Usually, there are benefits associated with these lamps. One, they offer signals to indicate the presence of tall structures thereby eliminating accidents and collisions cases. Also, by fixing these lamps, you comply with the aviation laws. As a result, you are not charged for noncompliance to the aviation laws.




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