Survey of San Jose Water tank sites

Craig Anderson and Andy Brown checked out several water tower sites June 12, 2009, at Regnart Canyon, Upper North side and Alum Rock. It wasn't as simple as we'd have liked (surprise). While the terrain view should give the best views towards the valley and worst to the sides over the hills, the reality is that the water company and its neighbors go to some effort to obscure the tanks with trees. In most of the cases, this blocked the straight ahead view. Sometimes a mount on the tank itself could possibly clear the trees, in other cases, the views to the sides were so good the straight view seemed dispensable.

I've notated a few photos with landmarks.

• Alumn Rock view of SJC EOC:
  

• Regnart Canyon to MTV:
  

• Regnart Canyon to Sunnyvale:
  

• Regnart Canyon to Palo Alto:
  

• Regnart Canyon to Los Gatos Hills:
  

• Where's Waldo? In this view from Alum Rock, can you locate Layer 42? Distance 13km:
  

• Alum Tower.jpg:
  The Alum Rock tower had this antenna area parceled off across the street from the main water tank security area but it turns out SJW has nothing to do with it. The large grassy area below it is easily accessible for setting up tests though.

-- Main.randomandy - 13 Jun 2009