I-81 Martinsburg

[convex20899]

We have several new cell tower's along I-81 In Martinsburg, WV. I will post photos soon.
Is there anyway tell who's carrier the towers are? Any company logo markings and where to looks.

Thanks in advance

[KyleAndMelissa22]

How ironic, I posted a picture in the WV gallery back on 12-2-2008 titled "I-81 Martinsburg."

It's a great picture:
http://gallery.wirelessadvisor.com/s...hp?i=5582&c=52

[Der84]

Well from what I've seen on most towers, mainly in the USA, there are signs on the shelters that will specify who is on the tower. Now as for figuring out which panel belongs to which carrier, you'll have to do some studying on that. Panels are different in each state/province (from what I've gathered anyways). (ie) A Verizon panel in West Virginia may look a little different then a Verizon panel in Michigan. My suggestion would be to look at other tower pictures in the WV album and compare them. That's how I did it when I was trying to figure them out in Michigan.

Other then that, you can either use your cell phone and see how many bars you have to help you determine at least one of the carriers (if more then 1). Finally if you don't know who is on the tower, I'm sure one of the other tower hunters familiar with that area maybe able to answer that for you.

Have fun tower hunting! Looking forward to seeing some pictures from you.

[convex20899]

KyleAndMelissa22,

Yes you did. Sense your post we have several new towers. From the MD state line to exit 16 I count 6 new tower sites. That's is within the past 8 months. And south from exit 16 to the VA state line I count 6 as well. I-81 in WV only runs 30 miles-if that.

I found this site while doing research on cellular carriers. Cell tower hunting seemed like a fun thing to do.

Ill post photos shortly. Is there a trick in posting the photos? can i past them directly in to the posts?

Thanks

[Der84]

When posting tower pics, post them directly into the designated state categories, (ie) Pictures from West Virginia go in the West Virginia category. It's better to post them in tower picture section, that way everyone can see them.

When you're in the picture gallery, right above there will be a spot that says upload, click it and that will take you to the section where you can fill out as much info as you know about the tower and upload it.

[KyleAndMelissa22]

Originally Posted by convex20899

KyleAndMelissa22,

Yes you did. Sense your post we have several new towers. From the MD state line to exit 16 I count 6 new tower sites.
That's is within the past 8 months. And south from exit 16 to the VA state line I count 6 as well. I-81 in WV only runs 30 miles-if that.

Wow cool, I took some pictures along I-81 (also look in the Virginia gallery) as I-81 is 1 of 4 routes I take to get to New Jersey,
the others being I-85 to I-95, US-29 through Mid Virginia & US-13 North of VA Beach on the Delmarva.
I go on trips up there about every few months.

More than half the time I make the trips at night, but when it's daytime I'd be able to take pix of interesting cell towers,
like very tall ones, or ones with more than 6 carriers, usually ones that I can remember where I took them.

If you look at pretty much every picture I've posted, I have the Lat/Long and alot of information about each and every tower.
If I think I'll forget where I took a picture that I want to post, I'll also take a picture of a landmark right near it.

Check out some other pix of mine, I'm a good photographer and perhaps one day I want a job that involves photography.

http://gallery.wirelessadvisor.com/b...ageuser=103992
http://www.panoramio.com/user/950665

[Der84]

KyleAndMelissa22

I was just looking at some of your pics on the panoramio website

Very nice! Looks like you've done quite a bit of traveling around, I'm a little jealous ha ha.

Some really nice views in some of those.

[convex20899]

KyleAndMelissa22,

Nice pictures. How do you get the information on the tower? such as which carrier or carriers on the tower, height, etc. I assume you use gps for the long and lat.

Thanks

[KyleAndMelissa22]

Originally Posted by convex20899

KyleAndMelissa22,

Nice pictures. How do you get the information on the tower? such as which carrier or carriers on the tower, height, etc. I assume you use gps for the long and lat.

Thanks

This picture I took is a good example of a tower in Cowpens SC along I-85 near exit 83, it is 5 miles away from me.
And I know who is on each level, based on the panels, and their other nearby towers, and studying it often after living here for 4 years.
Notice how there is a huge difference between the 2nd and 3rd level,
mainly because Verizon & T-Mobile's nearby sites are a mile closer than the next Sprint site, so they didn't need as much height.

Also it's owner is listed as "New Cingular Wireless Inc" which means AT&T
so you know AT&T is on the top.

In order from top to bottom: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon.

http://gallery.wirelessadvisor.com/s...hp?i=4579&c=44

[KyleAndMelissa22]

Originally Posted by convex20899

KyleAndMelissa22,

Nice pictures. How do you get the information on the tower? such as which carrier or carriers on the tower, height, etc. I assume you use gps for the long and lat.

Thanks

Usually I just use field testing on my phone to find what carriers are on what towers.
by testing the signal strength, or paying attention to the panels, and finding the carrier's other nearby sites (tower spacing),
then I could find who is on a certain tower (not always in order).

And actually I use Google Earth to find the lat/longs of the towers after I take my pictures,
and there is a .KMZ file for Google Earth (from fccinfo.com) that tells info about registered
towers, such as height, owner, elevation, etc., and gives info about AM/FM/TV stations towers as well.

http://ge.fccinfo.com/fccinfo.kmz

Here is a screenshot over Martinsburg, WV with the ASR Towers layer visible.
You'd click on the registered tower's number to get more info on that tower.



Here's what happens when you click on a registered tower number, it gives you all the stats of that tower: