Skip to content

When four Richmond antennas became two

For the best part of 40 years, Cliff Houff has looked out of his bedroom window to check the weather on Sturgeon Banks and taken for granted the four, 200-foot radio towers that pierce the skyline.

For the best part of 40 years, Cliff Houff has looked out of his bedroom window to check the weather on Sturgeon Banks and taken for granted the four, 200-foot radio towers that pierce the skyline.

When he glanced out of the same window last week, however, something other than the weather was taking place on the south end of the West Dyke Trail, just north of Steveston Highway.

Engineers, according to Houff, were slowly, but surely, dismantling two of the four towers, which belong to CBC Transmission, and are among 500 or so similar structures across Canada.

“The two closest to shore, according to the fellow I spoke to yesterday, will be left,” Houff told the Richmond News, adding that the walkway leading to the towers seems to have been left alone.

“As far as the walkway (is concerned), I'm not sure what the plans are for that. 

“My guess is that, whatever they do, they will not remove the pilings.  Doing that would cause too much environmental damage to the marsh which is considered a sensitive wildlife habitat.

“It will be odd, looking out our bedroom window and not seeing all four lights on the tops of the towers, as we have for the last 37 years.

“In a strange sort of way, they have provided a sense of continuity in the world. Apparently, these antenna are about 60 years old; a lot of Richmondites will have ‘grown up’ with these.”

CBC Transmission, a division of CBC, and is responsible for providing the means by which the corporation collects, distributes and delivers its radio and television services to Canadians and also provides transmission-related services to the private sector.

A spokesperson for CBC Transmission told the Richmond News the towers will, at some point, be replaced by more efficient equipment and that there will be no disruption to service in the area.