Anyone in the Orange County area

I'm the one to ask about towers here in OC

The one disguised as a palm tree at the 22 & Glassell is Verizon.

The palm tree in Garden Grove at Haster St & the 22 frwy is Sprint.

The pine tree overlooking the 55 frwy just South of 17th St in Santa Ana is Sprint.

The palm tree on the 5 Frwy in Tustin between the 55 frwy and Newport Ave. belongs to Nextel.

 

Ha. Palm trees, pine trees, gothic spires, gargoyles, Jesus action figures... Seems like the aesthetical concerns of nearby residents should be alleviated. But nay. As I already reported, residents of Turtle Rock area of Irvine are fighting a tower. Just got a new service, and, as I expected, the T-Mobile (and other providers') coverage in and around my house is almost non-existent.
A cell tower as a pine tree
A cell tower as a palm tree
I wanna see more designs. Maybe some fallic structures (an ancient stone fallus?):

 

how about a cell site hidden inside a manequin designed to look like a human protester against cell sites......holding a sign saying "I microwave my popcorn but damnit you shouldnt get a signal in my town!"

 

That will be one huge protester. VERY unsightly.
Well, as everybody knows, towers are people's enemies. People fight them everywhere. Geez. As if they don't have more immediate issues to resolve in their communities.

 

Okay.. curiousity has gotten the better of me... I get full bars at Cypress College, but see no cell tower, cell-palm-tree, etc. I wonder where they put it...?


Also, is Cingular/T-Mobile putting up "Micro-Cells" in Irvine? Reason I ask is I see full coverage in some areas of south Irvine, but no cell tower in sight, and these tiny little antannae-like things on the light poles... sound feasible?

 

Yeah... like reading a book, playing with their children, etc...

 

BigBroni,

The two that you are referring to are Verizon analog towers. Let me know if you need to ID anymore around here.

 

Okay.. curiousity has gotten the better of me... I get full bars at Cypress College, but see no cell tower, cell-palm-tree, etc. I wonder where they put it...?


Also, is Cingular/T-Mobile putting up "Micro-Cells" in Irvine? Reason I ask is I see full coverage in some areas of south Irvine, but no cell tower in sight, and these tiny little antannae-like things on the light poles... sound feasible?[/quote]

They could be micro cells or antennas hidden on top of buildings.

 

They could be micro cells or antennas hidden on top of buildings.[/quote]

I've also noticed these along PCH, leaving Newport and heading into Huntington Beach.... Funny what you notice in traffic.

 

I live in Buena Park the area of ValleyView and Cerittos and the reception for ATT has been bad 3 years. I have called CS and opened several job tickets to have this problem fixed. Does anyone know the location of the cell towers that covers this area. I know there is one guy who posted on this thread that knows where all the cell towers are.

Thanks
Mike

 

Sorry but that's getting a little too far away from me. I don't have the locations of any AT&T towers in that area. I know that Sprint shares space on a couple of AT&T towers in Buena Park. One being at the 5 & 91 interchange and the other being at Bellis Park off the 5. Sprint has towers at Beach & La Palma, Lincoln & Knott, Knott & La Palma, and they're going to build one at Beach & La Mirada this year.

 

Larry,

Thanks for the info. Anyway of finding out where ATT cell towers are? About a year ago they put up a cell tower disguised as a palm tree. I asked the workers who the cell belongs to and they said Verision. For 3 years I have called ATT CS and put in several job tickets, but the reception is still the same. I have the Seimens S46 dual band phone which is nice because I can choose to use the TDMA Side or GSM which ever is better. One weird thing in the GSM Mode if the signal is weak the phone with make a BEEP BEEP sound in the earpiece and if I move around the call will come back, but if the signal is to weak the call will be droped. Is this a common thing on GSM if a cellphone signal is to weaK?

Thanks again
Mike

 

There's really no way of finding out about AT&T tower locations that I know of. On the GSM issue I can't help either. I've always used CDMA.

 

From the article (linked as "towers are our enemy"):

Hm, because a tower tech charges out at $55 an hour or so and spending more time than needed to get the job done right is a waste of money?

 

You're definitely NOT a conspiracy buff! Of course, those cloak-and-dagger types do it quicky and under a veil of night only to instantly kill people in their sleep. C'mon, everybody knows it! Aliens spaceships also use those towers as alternative parking docks to kidnap and anally probe the taxpayers

 

So who owns the fake pine tree in the wee park off of the Bear St overpass/405 freeway? Just curious...

Also -- following the post that asks about new micro-cells/towers from Cingular in Irvine: does anyone else in "central" Irvine (Deerfield area) have spotty Cingular reception? Based on Cingular's claimed coverage zones, I bought my phone with the idea of replacing my land line, but that turned into a no-go proposition. Calls fizzle and drop out, or are static-y. It's gotten so bad that I'm considering switching carriers... only, my mobile # is also my business #, and switching carriers would mean switching numbers; major hassle, major expense.

I read an article a couple of months back that stated a Class Action lawsuit had been filed against Cingular by a bunch of people who were fed up with just this kind of coverage-not-as-advertised problem, and the article stated that Cingular was scrambling to put in a bunch of new towers/cells to upgrade their coverage. Then I got a legal notice in the mail restating the above, saying that soon my coverage would be free of holes. However, the problems persist.

I accidently crushed my trusty old phone, and I'm thinking of buying and unlocked phone, which would leave me free to pick up a new carrier.

Any comments? Cheers,
Chris

 

Chris,

That pine tree tower belongs to Sprint. Funny you should mention that one because I was just over there looking at it about 2 weeks ago.

 

Hey Larry... here's one for ya... the fake pine tree over by the 22 @ beach blvd (behind Phillips tire)... any idea whose that one is?

 

Wow I think you have me stumped on that one. How long as it been there? Pine trees are usually Sprint but could also be Nextel.

 

You're kidding... carriers have their own 'themes' ?!?!?!

So if Cingular tried to put up a pine tree instead of a palm tree, would it count as 'tower aesthetic infringment' ?

Saw a tower in the San Jose area last year that had been wrapped up to look like a candy cane for the holidays.... what's the most outrageous/goofiest disguise you've encountered?

Cheers,
Chris

 

Yes I've noticed that each carrier seems to have their preferred way of disguising cell antennas. Cingular prefers palm trees, flag poles, and uni-poles. Sprint uses pine trees, water towers, and flag poles. Of course there are always exceptions to this. I'm sure each carrier has used every type of design.

 

dunno...noticed it the other day when driving home... looks like it crept up *in the middle of the night*. it's in a pretty hidden spot, so it could've been there for a few days/months

Just out of curiousity...are all the sites (like the one on Garden Grove Blvd. and Goldenwest/Knott, right behind Harry's place) that have the white H type cells Cingular/GSM sites?

 

That's interesting. I'm going to have to get over there and check it out. I hope it's a new Sprint site that I don't know about. But if I remember Nextel does have a tree site (which looks totally different than Sprint's) right near there so maybe that's what you saw.

A good way to ID Cingular/GSM sites is that they almost always use only 6 white panels (2 per sector),(flat or slightly concave shaped) on their poles while Sprint uses 9 or 12. Nextel uses 12. Verizon uses 12 thicker type panels. AT&T varies. I have gotten to the point where I can easily ID each carrier's sites just by looking.

 

Yeah...it's right behind Phillips Tire... it's pretty well hidden.

That must be a Cingular/Pacbell site then.... they have 6 white panels (3 "H" configs pointing in three different ways)

just out of curiousity, are the streetlamp mount dipole antennaes just repeaters, or are they physicially linked to the networks?

I know sprint has a web site that gives you the loc. of all their sites... http://www.sprintsiteusa.com/tower/combinedsearch.cfmhttp://www.sprintsiteusa.com/tower/combinedsearch.cfmhttp://www.sprintsiteusa.com/tower/combinedsearch.cfm I wasn't able to find this site in this database

 

sorry...the link didn't come out right...

http://www.sprintsitesusa.com/

 

Yes the site you described is a Cingular site. Nobody else uses that 3 "H" 6 white panel configuration. By the way I know the site you are referring to.

The funny thing is I actually know some one who works at the Phillips tire store in Westminster. I haven't been out there in at least 6 months though. I hope it's a Sprint site. Do you happen to know for sure that it is a pine tree and not a palm or Cypress? Can you get to the base of it? Does it have 4 panels per sector with 3 sectors? Are the tree and panels painted dark green?

The sprintsitesusa.com site does not list all of Sprint towers. Only about 10%-20% of them. It only lists the ones that Sprint wants to offer for co-location purposes. Many sites never make it on there because they are not feasible for this purpose because of height, spacing, zoning laws, etc.

The street lamp pole mounted sites are usually not repeaters. They are micro cells that have shorter range and less capacity than regular sites. These are usually used for fill in coverage along streets where the regular sites can't cover. If you drive out through El Toro Canyon Rd. and Santiago Canyon Rd (north of Mission Viejo) you will see many of them. There are also many of them in Malibu Canyon

 

Hiya larry...

Cool...thx for the info. and fulfilling my curiousity now i know which ones to look for..hehe

I'll see if I can drive by that one tonight...curiousity has gotten the better of me as well....

There's a set of towers off of Bonita Canyon Road view link that i drive by frequently... I notice that not only sprint uses this site, and I think Cingular? Big cell site.

 

In that picture, Sprint's array at the top. AT&T's is below it. The picture's probably old so maybe Cingular has joined on there as well. It is a substantial site.