A little history. These towers were originally erected in the 1950's and served as a means of long-distance phone communication. Later, they were upgraded to carry television signals. The large reflector horns would send a message in a direct beam to another tower in the chain, which would receive the message and either pass it on to another tower or route it through local telephone lines. With the rise of fiber optics technology, which was cheaper and could carry more data, the "Long Lines" network of microwave towers were sold in the 1990's. Now most towers are owned by a company called american tower, which typically removes the microwave reflector antennas and replaces them with cell phone antennas, as it is cheaper to buy an existing structure than build a new one.
