Vail Mills Tower info

[Dave Doherty]

Hi, Matt-

> Dave, I am originally from Broadalbin, and have always wondered exactly 
> where the old WCDB tower was located (nobody I ever talked to there even 
> knew what I was talking about when I would ask them about it).  Would you 
> be able to tell me where exactly that was?

I know I answered this before and gave you some directions. I had a few 
minutes and decided to dig a little farther into it in case you want go on a 
scouting mission some day with a GPS.

I blew up the old 1:1,000,000 (1x2 degree) topo map of the area using the 
GeoPDF tool, and the coordinates appear to have been N 43 03 28 W 74 12 35. 
I would say this is accurate to within 4 seconds or so.  That was in the 
NAD-27 coordinate system.  In the more modern NAD-83 / WGS-84 system used by 
default in portable GPS units, that translates to N 43 03 28.3 W 74 12 33.5. 
Today, this is a wooded area, and I see nothing in the aerial and sat photos 
from Google Earth or the Terra Server - not even in the Terra Server's IR 
imagery - that looks like a building, foundation, or anything else man-made 
in the immediate vicinity.  The tower was removed by 1968, probably several 
years earlier, and 40+ years is a lot of time for nature to cover the 
remains.

If you can locate a 1950's-60's topo map of the area, you should be able to 
locate the tower more accurately.  You might find this in a surveyor's 
office, the town records department, or almost certainly in the State 
Library in Albany. Keep in mind that you will have to convert the 
coordinates or set your GPS to NAD-27.  Of couse, the town records 
department should have a site plan, and that would be best of all.

-d