Any ideas what these were used for?

[Radio Fixer]

I put it under this topic as they have a vaguely military look about them.

   

Seen walking the mountains in Val Gardena, Italy.

Of course they could be old advertising hoardings but I don't think so considering where they were. I didn't get a pic of the other side but did see it and it was just a flat surface.

Could they have been reflectors long ago with some sort of repeating amplifier between them?

cheers Gary

[AlanBeckett]

I can just see the 'Man with the bucket of whitewash' pasting a new Advert on the other side
He'd have to be a real hero.

Alan

[Refugee]

I would expect them to be passive reflectors and going by the angle and the presence of housing on the valley floor they would be reflecting TV signals from a TV station down to the housing at the bottom of the hill.

[Radio Fixer]

Very plausible Refugee before the days of satellite TV.

thanks Gary

[ed731pdh]

Reminds me of those sighting boards for pilots at KaiTek airport Hong Kong, bolted to buildings and outcroppings.

[Refugee]

If a TV station gets enough advertising they will be kept in good order and once they exist the cost of keeping them there will be low.
Drop a street view onto the town and look at where the aerials are pointing. You should be able to see them in satellite mode to get a direction. The compass is more complicated in Google earth.

[Stockden]

I would expect them to be passive reflectors and going by the angle and the presence of housing on the valley floor they would be reflecting TV signals from a TV station down to the housing at the bottom of the hill.

They're definitely passive reflectors and you may well be right that they're for TV. I suspect however that they're for microwave radio-relay and probably carry the telephone trunks out of the town in the bottom of the valley. I saw several reflectors like this in the Balkans some years ago and they were all part of the (rather elderly) telephone network. Their great advantage is that they need no power (particularly important in mountainous terrain) and require next to no maintenance. Even if these particular ones are no longer in use it's probably not worth the cost and effort to remove them.

Hugh

[Brianc]

I worked at the BBC studios in Norwich for a few weeks and their microwave link to the Tacolneston transmitter used a horizontal dish beneath a tower mounted 45 degree passive reflector. The only reason I could think of was that the reflector was smaller than the dish and the feeder would have been shorter!