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By Paul Sakrison - AM830.net Editor  In early September 2009 work
began on the refurbishment of Angel Stadium's ubiquitous 'Big A'. Built as
the scoreboard of the stadium in 1964 and, later, moved out to the parking lot
near the 57 freeway, the 230-foot tall, 210-ton Big A has remained the symbol
of the Angels and the stadium. Every Angels win ends with Rory Markas or Terry Smith saying "light up the halo, just another Halos victory". All these years the Big A remained mostly unchanged, even as technology moved rapidly beyond its antiquated display  board
and incandescent lights in the halo that were not easy to change. It has been
painted from time to time and had a few minor repairs. Replacement electronic
parts for the display board became unavailable years ago. Crews arrived with a huge truck crane and they began pressure washing off any loose paint in preparation for repainting and the repainting was completed about two weeks later. The red letters on the south side if the board are now white, as seen in the photo (left).  The
face of the halo was replaced with a new ring of lighting, which should last
for many years before needing service. The old halo lights were in clusters of
seven lights with wide spaces between the clusters. The new lights are a continuous
field around the famed ring (see photo, right). A worker wasseen standing on the halo while working on the Halo cabling 
in the picture at left. Would you volunteer for that job? On Monday 10/19 the new halo was lit up for the first time, after the Angels ALCS Game 3 win (see photo right bottom). There are new lights running up the sides of the Big A. The display board was updated to modern technology, using much less power than the old 150-watt per bulb system. The removal of the old display board began mid-September. The crates containing the new display board finally arrived on site Friday 10/23/09. The mounting of the board was completed 11/2/09 (see below).  Work continued through November, adding trim panels around the display board to close up the Big A and the board was  wired to get it running.Electrical power was applied December 2nd. Electronic programming took about a week. Some pretty crazy stuff was seen while the programming setup was completed. Work on the Big A was completed on Monday 12/7/2009 about 2:40 PM when the programming of the display board was completed and the messaages began to cycle (see image, right). Look for the message board on the Big A as you drive south on the 57 freeway as you pass Angel Stadium. And be watching when the Angels begin play and have their first win when we light up the all-new halo! |