Nextel towers

Look at the door of the shelter - they are usually marked. You can also look at the electric meters - they are occasionally marked with the carrier(s) names.

The antennas are not a reliable way to tell, but Nextel often uses nine or twelve 8' antennas.

 

8' Panels??? Since when? I have seen a few, but not the norm. And more often than not, a 4 panel/sector site is iDen/Nextel.

Granted, I haven't been involved directly with a Nextel install in about 2.5 years, but I can't imagine they completely changed antenna design (especially given that the size of the panel is directly related to the wavelength of the frequency).

 

No 8' Nextel panels at all in this market.

 

It's usually 4 gray thin panels in Delaware anyway.

 

I have nextel also, and ive been trying to get good at picking out there towers, so im curious as to a concrete answer on this one.

 

Thats the problem, there is no concrete answer. Almost all the Nextel sites around here are 4 panel per sector, some panels are off white and some are battleship gray. And then there's the omni's, some Nextel sites here have 3 omni's on them. But usually Nextel's panels are about 4' long, while most other carriers panels are half that size or smaller. If you look at a tower and it's shorter than normal with 4 long panels on each side of the cell site, basically it just looks really big compared to other that you have seen, it is probably a Nextel site. Not always but most likely.

 

As a last resort, we could always just walk up under the tower and look on the fencing where the carrier name is usually listed correct?

 

Another good way to tell is by the GPS information on the phone as well...

Pound (#) -> Star (*) -> Menu -> Right Arrow (as quickly as possible)

This will enter you into "Trace Mode", scroll to GPS, then Location.

Listed under C Lat and C Lon is the coordinates of the tower your phone is connected to. Enter the information into Google Maps (or your preferred map program/site) and it will show it to you.

Example: My phone is showing C Lat as N 41.75964 and C. Lon W 85.33633 enter it as shown, Latitude first or as "+41.75964 -85.33633" (Lat is north of the equator so +, Lon is west of the prime meridian so -, change accordingly for you, but for all North American users this is the case).

And this is the location: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=...5.336304&spn=0.14188,0.348129&om=1&iwloc=addr

But I agree, knowing what to look for would be nice too! :biggrin:

-Charlie

 

I've noticed that Nextel has reduced the size of their panels over the years. Back around 1998-1999 their panels were huge!

 

Nextel panels depend on the market, and sometimes on which antenna vendors take us out to lunch more often... lol j/k

 

Switching to smaller/fewer antennas ends up happening due to tower structural analysis failure pretty often around here. Twelve 8' antennas gives new meaning to the term 'wind sail area'.

RF eng. usually prefer the big antennas though.

 

I don't think my friends in Reston would want that even joked about.

Speaking of vendors....Andrew is buying EMS Wireless.

 

Four Panels????? Nextel in S.LA has never used four antenna's. It's always 3.

 

South Los Angeles? Or South Louisiana?

With Nextel it also depends on who initially built out the area. Nextel didn't "build the network from the ground up." In a lot of major metropolitan areas they bought out local SMR providers and converted the sites over to Nextel equipment. Quite often though, since the previous provider was on the same part of the band the existing antennas and coax were reused if they met spec.

By default though, a Nextel site will have three antennas as that's what it needs. Many though were built with a spare in place.

 

Nextel in Northern Michigan uses 3 of the bigger panels. And the big ones are commonly refered to as double wave, the regulars are full wave. The big antennas are more commonly used on PCS and they are used on a multitude of rural carriers where the towers are farther apart. Its all about the gain. Not many omni Nextel sites left, for capacity reasons they had to upgrade most up here.

 

Thanks, I didn't know that.

Another thing you might try if you're near the tower in question is selecting TX Status in trace mode. That'll give you the signal strength display. If it's extremely strong, odds are it's from that tower. If it's weak near a tower, it's for sure that the carrier in question isn't on that one.


-- J.S.

 

Good. Maybe now it won't be so hard to get an RMA.

 

No, it's actually even worse than it was before. I didn't think it was possible but I've been proved wrong on this one.