If you are looking for my car, just find this license plate:
I selected this style of license plate to honor my old friend, Steve Allen. Besides, it’s a good cause to support via my annual tag fees.
Category: Gallery
Rarer than the Loch Ness Monster: the Mono-Scaffold Wireless Tower!
It is rare that I have the privilege of capturing a never-before documented wireless tower design. Yet fate has chosen to grace me by allowing me to find, in the wild, this most elusive of wireless tower designs…
…the Mono-Scaffold!
While hereto-now only hushed rumors of this rarest of tower designs have been uttered in the strictest of confidences between contract wireless engineers working for carriers, I am able to confirm with irrefutable evidence forthe international scientific and lay communities the first documented, photographed mono-scaffold site.
This mono-scaffold site, located in Malibu California on Pacific Coast Highway, forever quiets the popular speculation of the existence of this fabled design. It is true. It exists.
Having now proven the existence of a Mon0-Scaffold, I must now turn my attention to the most important follow-on query:
Is a Mono-Scaffold subject to Section 6409(a) of The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012?
A lessor question, but important in its own right:
Is a Mono-Scaffold is subject to EIA/TIA-222?
As is most often the case, one answer provokes several new questions. The expansion of knowledge continues.
You are lucky to live in the time during which the existence of the fabled Mono-Scaffold was proven as a fact.
If you wish to field-verify my findings, I encourage you to navigate…quickly…to N34.0394 W118.6717.
I urge you to hurry. There is no telling how long the Mono-Scaffold will remain in this one location.
Jonathan
T-Mobile’s Clever Way to Camo a Polish Cell Site
What better way for T-Mobile to promote its wireless service than to turn a cell site into a billboard advertisement for T-Mobile’s wireless service. It’s kind of a ‘two-fer.’
This billboard/cell site is located west of the Morawica area of Poland, just west of John Paul II International Airport (the Krakow, Poland Airport) on E462.
You can click on the photograph to enlarge it to full size. I shot this photo during my trip to Central Europe in September, 2011.
Shameless promotion: I have thousands of high resolution photographs of wireless communications sites and components online at CellTowerPhotos.com. My wireless site photographs regularly grace magazine covers and illustrate articles. They also served to illustrate the National Geographic Magazine article on camouflaged cell tower sites, “Cell Phonies” (September 2007).
Photograph Copyright © 2011 Jonathan Kramer. All rights reserved.
-Jonathan
New Photos in Cell Tower Gallery
Last month I traveled to Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico to participate on a wireless law panel and to visit with friends. While there I had a chance to take a series of new site photos in Santa Fe, and to add to the Twisted Tower photo collection.
Here are a few examples that are available for full size viewing in the celltowersites.com/gallery/
With over 1,400 cell site and cell tower photos, our photo gallery is perhaps the finest online collection available anywhere. To visit the gallery, just CLICK HERE.
Jonathan
Simple Stylish Scottsdale Site
Camouflaging a wireless site is not simply about hiding the antennas. Sometimes its about designing and locating the panel antenna enclosure to fit the existing architectural surroundings. Here’s an example at the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall in, of all places, Scottsdale, Arizona (I was in Scottsdale a few days ago on business).
The antenna panels are only easy to spot if you’re a wireless siting expert (like yours truly). What? You don’t see them? Okay…I’ll give you a close up of one of the boxes.
The pop-up box enclosures on either site of the bridge are nicely integrated into the face of the structure.
My only disappointment in the design of this particular site is that the GPS antenna is plainly visible above the panel antenna enclosure. It should have been placed back on the roof so as not to be visible to the public.
As a general note, the City of Scottsdale has a reputation for planning some very creative wireless sites. Sometimes the sites are camo, like above; sometimes the sites incorporate public art; sometimes they use mono-cactus.
Good work, Scottsdale!
Wireless Vultures!
Many have claimed that wireless towers are unfriendly to birds, and that wireless carriers are vultures.
Nope, not true!
Here are the real wireless vultures! In a twist, a couple of days ago I stumbled across a tower in Pittsburg, California that is very friendly to birds. Vultures, that is. By my count, there were 33 of them on this CrownCastle site at 85 Bliss Avenue. The photo, below, shows just a few of these residents.
In a couple of days I’ll post more photos in the photo gallery.
A Truly Twisted Cell Tower
Attention creative wireless site planners: A truly twisted cell tower has risen from a mesa in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
This uniquely designed multi-carrier cell tower constructed in the Mesa del Sol area in Albuquerque, New Mexico, just south of the airport.
The architect for this site is Dekker/Perich/Sabatini.
This site isn’t quite complete, but it should raise the level of the discussion regarding turning cell sites into artistic visions.
The anchor tenant at the site is Verizon Wireless. The site can handle up to seven carriers.
I have placed over 100 photos of this site in a dedicated gallery at celltowersites.com/gallery/
Elements of Wireless Design
In yet another in my occasional series of “elements of wireless design” I’d like to share with you an outstanding design developed by the City of Piedmont, California and T-Mobile.
The antennas are hidden behind the faux vents in the bell tower. The equipment is inside the building. If I had not had this site pointed out to me by the rightfully proud planners in the City of Piedmont, I never would have guessed it to be a PCS wireless site.
Good job, Piedmont!
Good job, T-Mobile!
Many New Cell Site Images
I’ve been on a bit of a tear recently taking and adding new photos to the planner gallery. If you haven’t visited the gallery lately, please do stop by and take a look around.
You may CLICK HERE to visit the gallery, or you can click on that really big picture above this posting!
Jonathan
No, it’s not the worlds largest cell site.
It is the worlds largest cell site…no, sorry, kidding…it’s the worlds largest monolithic rock, for decades called Ayers, and now (again) by its traditional name, Uluru.
I took this photo about 48 hours ago, just before sunset.
This is a spiritual and quiet place (when away from us tourists).
Go.
(Click on the photo for a much larger version…Photo Copyright 2009 Jonathan L. Kramer)
