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Discarded AT&T Microwave Bunkers For Sale
InitZero writes "American Tower is selling nearly 2000 old AT&T Long Line microwave locations that are no longer needed thanks to fiber. These towers -- spaced about 50 miles in every direction -- and their associated bunkers were designed to withstand World War III. The average location (find one near you) has two acres of land, 1,800 square feet worth of bunker and a tower of 200 feet. Some locations still have their hardware (60KW generator, microwave feedlines, equipment racks, feed horns, etc.) All this for an average price of just $25,000. If you're a ham radio operator, building a data center or just looking for a place to put your wireless access point, these locations look awesome."
Some google cache hunting reveals that you can get the complete list in Excel format from... http://atcsdmaftp01.americantower.com/excelReports /NationalSiteList.xls. Now that "I got Mine!" I'll share the URL with you. :-)
WTF? Slashdot says I'm missing a subject or a body? I suppose that is the lameness-required filter that made me add this stupid paragraph.
Someone please mod the parent into oblivion. I believe that is the active site list, not the surplus site list.
Mark Foster has another really nice Long Lines site that includes a table that lists many Long Lines facilites in many states, describes the equipment installed there and has photos of some of the facilities. He also provides the technical specifications for the construction of these sites, as well as photos from tour he took of a still-operating one.
is measured in lb/sq. inch. The reason the blast is so damaging to buildings is because of wall size magnifies the force to a few tons of pressure on the side of the wall. The towers if you notice, are open, thin bars that present little surface area for the blast to contact. What is exposed is well anchored.
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Guess I'm not the only one to dream of owning a nuke-resistant bunker.
Here's the Google cache of the site map to salivate over...
Good news if you're back east or in the Bay Area, bad news otherwise.
Say, wonder if Mrs. Moody would mind running a home daycare out of one of these?
No Longer a Menace to Society.
Alexandria Morrigan born 2/22/01 l. 20.5in wt. 7 lbs. 5 oz.
According to the page that is linked in the summary http://www.drgibson.com/towers/ It mentions:
:)
The buildings supporting the towers were hardened against a nuclear blast, and some of them in high-danger areas were underground. The towers themselves were engineered to withstand all but a close (within 5 miles) blast. The microwave horns were covered with a protective shield to keep out not only the elements, but also radioactive fallout. The buildings were shielded with copper to protect the equipment against the Electromagnetic Pulse associated with a nuclear explosion. Foot-thick concrete walls protected the vital electronics and people inside the base installations of these towers. Thick copper grounds went deep into the bedrock beneath each tower. Fallout showers, backup generators, sleeping facilities all existed to keep the network up in times of war.
So while the equipment itself is likely hardened, the building is shielded.. It doesn't say how much shielding, etc there is however
It seems AT&T had a considerable investment in long distance buried coaxial cable. Apparently there was a pair of these cable laid a few miles away from here as a contractor was going through a few years back digging them back up and recovering them.
As I recall from the local paper's article the cables were probably 4 to 6 inches in diameter and were then encased in lead. I also recall that they were buried several feet deep, at least deeper than water lines and regular phone cable gets buried around here.
From my youth I recall an AT&T Long Lines bunker a few miles south of US 36 on US 75 north of Topeka, KS. I believe these cables went through there as they were on an east/west run through northern Kansas. Where the ultimate terminating points were would be a good exercise.
Many old microwave sites are still standing around these parts. The tower lights and painting are still maintained. It's interesting that it apparently cost more to disassemble them than to leave them stand.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over again expecting a different result."
I worked on some of these (underground bunker types), as an Inspector (concrete/steel), during the early '70s. I recall at least one had to be abandoned due to several batches of concrete that failed strength testing in the lab. They simply covered it with dirt and moved over several hundred yards to begin again.
They were heavily compartmented, and built much like a bank vault, where you have a box inside a box inside a box. There was at least one central cavity that was meant to be home for worst case attacks.
As I recall, this was pre ATT, and they were built for ITT, under a government contract to provide domestic communications if WWW III (as stated) broke out. And yes, there was considerable money invested.
These things aren't in cities, for the most part.
The one I'm familiar with is near Mount Cory, Ohio, and is situated in the middle of a corn field (or is it soybeans, this year?). It consists of a man-made hill, twenty-or-so feet tall, with a couple of small buildings on top. The tower itself is as other posters have described - not terribly tall (less than 200 feet), with an incredibly wide base. Giant feedhorns flow gracefully from it. I'm told by people who've been into it that the space below ground is much more expansive.
High-tension transmission lines live nearby to supply power. It has its own substation.
It would be a very poor choice as a location from which to which to distribute massive amounts of bandwidth.
For one thing, a wireless ISP set up their NOC in an abandoned local telco building about a quarter-mile down the road from there. They constructed a rather monstrous, more modern-looking tower. I'd estimate height at 600' - it positively dwarfs the AT&T relay station.
For another thing, it must have made more sense to build new, than buy the little relay station, or lease tower space, or whatever. Else, they wouldn't have done it. And if a couple-hundred feet would've been OK for this ruler-flat Ohio landscape, I doubt they'd have gone as far up as they did.
And ironically, I had a conversation that went something like this when I had the comwavz installers at my house, not long after service rollout:
Him: So, the DS-3 should be up Real Soon Now, after AT&T gets their head screwed on straight. For now, all we have is a T1.
Me: Well, that's fine. What's the holdup on the DS-3?
Him: I guess they can't figure out how to sell it to us via microwave.
Me: This is the same AT&T with the relay station right over there [/me points], right?
Him: Yeah. Strange, huh?
It's -hard- to get bandwidth out in the sticks, even if you've got a cold war microwave relay within spitting distance. I doubt things would improve much by owning one or two instead of just being near one.
Kid-proof tablet..
Back in the olden days of satellite communications, all satellites operated on the "C" band. The bane of C band was "TI". TI stood for terrestrial interference...and these towers were the culprits! As a secondary service (these towers were the primary service), satellites were limited to very low powers (5-10 watts), so C band dishes had to be very large to pick up such feeble signals from space. Now that these are being decommissioned, maybe, just maybe, C band's potential can finally be realized. I can think of many uses of this slice of 2-4 Ghz spectrum...though the Govt. is probably already salivating at the prospect of another spectrum auction.
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/cooked.htm
Enjoy
Somebody posted an XLS document listing all their sites, both active and inactive. I graphed the data out and listed the geographical location of the inactive sites. Go to http://aaron.cyberfreakout.com/inactivebell.htm to view it.
I would imagine that they're trying to sell the inactive ones...
AT&T Long Lines Places and Routes contains a list of Maps, Diagrams and Lists relating to the AT&T Long Line Bunkers.
After expressing interest in two sites, I received this email response:
u blic%20Reports/Marketing/AvailableSitesList.xls
From: Ross Elder
To: 'John Hoffman'
Subject: RE: Sites of interest
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 15:44:03 -0400
Please note that the message posted yesterday on Slash Dot is incorrect.
American Tower Corporation has only a limited number of Surplus towers for
sale that can be accessed by clicking "Sites For Sale" on our home page.
These are the only towers that are for sale. Please also note that these
Surplus sites are sold on a strictly "as is-where is", all cash basis.
If the site you are inquiring about is not on the "Sites For Sale" list,
then it is not for sale.
If you are interested in a Surplus site, please contact me via email.
If you are having difficulty accessing our website, please try again later
as we were experiencing technical difficulties earlier today.
Thanks,
Ross Elder
Senior VP/Development
American Tower Corporation
The actual list of available sites can be downloaded at:
http://www.americantower.com/acweb/ATCSDMAREP02/P