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Discarded AT&T Microwave Bunkers For Sale

Posted by chrisd on from the good-place-for-a-party dept.

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."

3 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. World War III... really? by Devil's+BSD · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Assuming there was a nuclear holocaust/World War III, how would a 500 ft microwave tower resist being blown down by a nuclear blast? Even if there is the bunker, the transmission effectiveness will be effectively zero without the tower.

    --
    I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
  2. Re:microwaves kick ass. I smell a ham... by saskboy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why would the power need to be turned up? Signals are signals right? We don't turn the power up on our Cat 5 because we're talk to Slashdot and eBay at the same time...

    --
    Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
  3. Re:EMP Hardening by sphealey · · Score: 3, Insightful
    You can't shield against EMP with a conductor unless it completely encloses the entire system. A communication tower MUST have cables going to unsheilded equipment. Shielding communication equipment would cause the equipment to malfunction, and I didn't see a giant copper shield around the towers in the pictures.
    Yeah, those guys at Bell Labs and Bell Systems Engineering were real boneheads. I doubt they had any understanding of EMP, despite having designed the only working anit-ballistic missle system and having done extensive work in the effects of the warheads of those missles. Nor did they know the first thing about the effects of magnetic fields and radiation on telephone systems - they just managed to build a worldwide voice network over the course of 100 years. Yep, a bunch of nincompoops wasting their time.

    sPh