Outside Wireless Antenna's

N

netsider

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 12, 2004
Messages
466
For a school project, I need to find "wireless" antenna's in the wild. I've been looking everywhere I go for the past week, and haven't seen any at all.

Besides people using external high-gain outdoor antenna's, where should I look?

Thanks. Any help is appreciated. ;)
 
You should be able to find cell phone towers almost anywhere. Do a Google image search for examples so you know what to look for. Sometimes they'll be disguised, often as trees. Cell towers will also sometimes have microwave antennas on them, which often look like large drums tipped on their side.

Your local police/fire/city yard/etc. will probably have some, possibly on a tower. Also, yards for local utilities (e.g., power service trucks). And locate your local telecom's nearby central offices.

Any large businesses/office buildings nearby? Those are often a prime location.

Check the roofs of commercial/retail businesses. Many will have small satellite dishes similar to what DirecTV/Dish use.

Any nearby hills might house some antenna towers.
 
Airports, water towers, water pumps, sewage treatment centers, truck stops, businesses that operate fleet vehicles, and the FCC tower registration database.
 
BlueLineSwinger said:
You should be able to find cell phone towers almost anywhere. Do a Google image search for examples so you know what to look for. Sometimes they'll be disguised, often as trees. Cell towers will also sometimes have microwave antennas on them, which often look like large drums tipped on their side.

Your local police/fire/city yard/etc. will probably have some, possibly on a tower. Also, yards for local utilities (e.g., power service trucks). And locate your local telecom's nearby central offices.

Any large businesses/office buildings nearby? Those are often a prime location.

Check the roofs of commercial/retail businesses. Many will have small satellite dishes similar to what DirecTV/Dish use.

Any nearby hills might house some antenna towers.
Click to expand...

All of those places seem obvious.. but I couldn't think of any at the time. Disguised as tree's? I've never heard of that... but I believe it. Is there a picture on the net somewhere of that? I'm planning on going looking tomorrow.. if the snow doesn't stick.

Thanks again...
 
In Northern California it is a fairly common thing as they "blend" them in with the surrounding trees. Here is a picture of one. Some stop lights have wireless units on them depending on the location.
 
I love how they try to blend them in, but it always looks funny having one "tree" that is 2-3 times the height of all its neighbors.
 
look on top of any tall building? water tower? fire station? police station? cell site? mountain top TV/Radio tower? they should be everywhere unless you live in the middle of nothing
 
robertp221 said:
In Northern California it is a fairly common thing as they "blend" them in with the surrounding trees. Here is a picture of one. Some stop lights have wireless units on them depending on the location.
Click to expand...

Wow. I've honestly never seen/heard of them (even in pictures) before. Thanks for the pics ;) And yea.. I have seen a few now driving around to places during the past few days finally.

Those pictures are kinda funny :D

I don't regret asking this question one bit anymore :cool:

Thanks again... take care all.

Edit:
Cardinals said:
Disney's Castaway Cay has one disguised as a palm tree. http://www.flickr.com/photos/eroller/7458193790/
Click to expand...

Thanks for this, also...
 
Cell towers are probably the easiest. Tall towers with flashing lights. Also you may get bonus points if you say they are sectors. Typical cell towers have 3 sectors, alpha beta and gamma. or X Y Z. They point to different locations. They are basically white vertical "bars". I believe it's just a plastic casing and the antenna probably has fins or something. Never saw inside of one.

When I went down south I noticed the antennas are much shorter, some are on tubular poles and maybe are 50ft if that.

The round dishes you see are microwave directional transmission, typically used for backhaul between cell towers or backup. With HSPA everything is typically fibre. Not sure if those would count.

If you go to the police station or hospital you'll see plenty of misc antennas on the roof too. Radio and TV station will have some too.
 
If you want some cool looking ones, you can check out the old AT&T Long Lines towers:

Bess_ATC.jpg


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT&T_Communications#AT.26T_Long_Lines

They're all over the place around here, and they kind of stick out with those weird reflector-horn antennas.
 
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