A little closer to the stars: the Eiffel Tower grew six meters on Tuesday and is now 330 meters high, following the installation at its top of a six-meter helicopter radio antenna.
A few onlookers and tourists braved the rainy weather which postponed the operation for about three hours to see the famous Parisian monument, one of the most visited in the world, embellished with a new antenna which will allow the whole of the Ile-de-France to be covered by digital terrestrial radio (DAB+). The operation, which required the agreement of the town hall of Paris, the Ministry of Culture and the police headquarters, lasted about fifteen minutes, the time for the helicopter to drop the antenna at the top where a technician was waiting to fix it.
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This is the first time that new equipment has been installed by helicopter on the Eiffel Tower, according to Sete (Eiffel Tower operating company). Prepared”for over a year“, the operation cost around one million euros and the antenna, designed by TDF engineers, weighs 350 kg, according to the general secretary of the broadcasting operator, Arnaud Lucaussy.”It is a great pride, a historic moment, rare in the history of the Eiffel Tower. It thus reconnects with its history, that of a place of technological and scientific experimentation.“, declared to the press Jean-François Martins, the president of the Sete.
According to him, the “Iron Lady”, designed by the architect Gustave Eiffel for the Universal Exhibition of 1889, was to be dismantled twenty years later but was “saved” by its function as a radio transmitter, primarily for military purposes. The previous antenna had been placed on its top in 2000, to allow the broadcasting of DTT (digital terrestrial television).