How do I find tower or high rise roof top space for my repeater ?

[JCase]

Greetings to all,

 

My question is this, how do I find contact information for the multitude of commercial radio towers or high rise buildings that lease roof top antenna space in my area ? I have spent countless hours now conducting endless on line searches, rewording my search criteria and I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I have had absolutely no luck at all. I have even contacted the local county government’s communication engineers to see if they could at least point me in the right direction. Sadly, they weren’t able to shed any light either.

 

Now before I start receiving multiple replies about why, especially as a newer member of the GMRS community, am I so worked up about placing a repeater on the air, understand that there currently are NO repeaters that I have been able to hear or even find listed anywhere in the entire county that I live in So, while my initial plan was to acquire permission to access already established repeaters that wasn’t an option. My second option was to just finish installing my 50’ tower and place a private repeater on the air for my family, friends and myself to use but a very good friend of mine (who happened to be a HAM) strongly urged me to reconsider and place my system on for everyone in the community to use which would further strengthen the growing network of GMRS systems available in the state, especially since there aren’t any currently in my area. So, that’s what I am attempting to do and my good friend was guiding me along until a couple of months ago when he suffered a massive stroke and passed away. In HAM terms, my friend was my “Elmer” and one of the best and nicest guys you’d ever want to meet. Long story longer, without his knowledge, experience and guidance in this attempt, I have been struggling to successfully complete my plan to get this system on the air. My 50’ tower isn’t going to provide the coverage needed to make this repeater a viable option for others to use and unless I can come up with a solution I’m afraid I will fail at placing a public system on the air and I really want to keep my word to my friend that I would try my best to successfully complete the endeavor. So, while I could put a local private repeater on for my personal use and most likely have that repeater work just fine for my personal needs, I gave my word that I would attempt placing a public system on the air first and only if that failed fall back to plan B.

 

So, this is why I attempting to find the contact information. To be honest, while I have the repeater, duplexer, hard line and DB413-B antenna, I realize there will still be more expense in setting everything up and that there is the reoccurring expense of the space rental/lease and even possibly a certified tower installer if placed on a commercial tower. When it’s all said and done, I might not be able to afford what’s needed to make this plan a reality, but I have to at the very least, try.

 

Any contact information or guidance would greatly be appreciated.

In case the information is needed, I am in the Daytona Beach, Florida, County of Volusia

You can contact me through my profile here on myGMRS or direct at

repeaterdaytona625@gmail.com (I can’t remember if posting a direct contact is in violation of this site or not) I’m sure if it is, the powers that be will remove it and I’ll be notified of the violation. Let’s hope I didn’t violate the sites rules.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read my mini novel and I look forward to future replies.

WRDM373, John here

[BoxCar]

Roof rights are granted by the property owner so the tower owners and radio system owners typically lease space from the property. Contacting the building management is the first step. The three key issues will be liability, mounting and power requirements.

[JCase]

Thank you BoxCar, that is very helpful. I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

[Jones]

You might want to contact Southern Stone Communications of Florida, LLC, and see if you could lease space at their tower farm just north of LPGA Blvd, between Wesley Street and Grand Preserve Way.  That looks like a very nice location.  It currently holds commercial FM stations WHOG "95.7 The Hog", as well as WVYB "103-3 The VIbe", and WLOV "99.5 Love FM".

 

The satellite image also shows an AM 2-tower directional array on the property just south of the big FM stick, but I cannot find the info on the AM station right now.

[Jones]

As for: "how to look up" tower sites, as you may know, every tower (or building) over 200 feet tall with antennas on it must have a registration number from the FCC.  That number is required by law [47 CFR 17.4 (g)] to be posted at the base of the tower (or at the building's entrance).  If you find a good site, look around for the Antenna Structure Registration number, or ASR.  You can then look up the owner's information here:

"https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/AsrSearch/asrRegistrationSearch.jsp"

[Radioguy7268]

Commercial tower sites tend to be expensive. Most towers are owned by the 3 or 4 major tower players, and they generally deal with cellular and other wireless carriers who will sign 20+ year leases with $1500+ per month. I've heard of premier location tower sites with rents over $4000 per month.

 

Now, a cellular carrier wants premier tower space, and they're hanging massive amounts of equipment (3 or 4 antennas per "sector"  - with Remote Radio heads on at least 2 or 3 of those antennas, and 3 sectors for a standard triangular array). You need a footprint that's about 1/10th of what a cellular carrier wants, but the national tower companies don't generally respond to offers of a month to month or annual lease with rents of $150.

 

There's a ton of high rise hotels out on Daytona beach, and I'm sure a few of them have space on the rooftops. Avoid the ones that already have cellular antennas on top, as there's likely a management company involved who is already in control of everything that's going up on the roof. I would try to find one of the less prominent hotels that's still locally owned and operated, and see if you can't work out a deal for rooftop space. You could probably swing a deal for annual rent (paid up front) that wouldn't break the budget, and you also wouldn't  need to worry about hiring a tower climbing crew, or paying for 200+ feet of high end Heliax coax cable. Find a maintenance guy at one of those hotels and offer to bring him lunch one day, it might make it easier to get up onto the roof.

 

I'd also tell you that a 50 foot HAAT out on the Florida coast is nothing to sneeze at. You won't cover the entire county, but you should get a good 5 to 10 mile radius without even trying. 

[BoxCar]

As for: "how to look up" tower sites, as you may know, every tower (or building) over 200 feet tall with antennas on it must have a registration number from the FCC.  That number is required by law [47 CFR 17.4 (g)] to be posted at the base of the tower (or at the building's entrance).  If you find a good site, look around for the Antenna Structure Registration number, or ASR.  You can then look up the owner's information here:

"https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/AsrSearch/asrRegistrationSearch.jsp"

ASR's are typically near the gate.

[JCase]

Howdy gentlemen,

 

I thank each and every one of you for the information and suggestions.

 

Jones, you’re not going to believe this, but that array of towers is actually the exact spot I had in mind if I ended up needing to go with the commercial tower option. That location is only a few blocks from my house which would make it very convenient when the need arises to perform general equipment maintenance or conduct any upgrades or repairs. I can’t thank you enough for the information and suggestions and am planning to take a drive to the site tomorrow during the day to see if I can locate the necessary information.

 

Radioguy7268, thank you for providing me with all of the information that you included regarding commercial tower sites. The potential and likelihood that the level of required high end equipment along with the lease/rental cost could and quite possibly will out price this as an option. But one never knows for sure unless one investigates and confirms so I still plan on making contact and seeing where it goes. However, I won’t be doing so completely ignorant and hopefully knowing in advance some of the extreme cost possibilities, I won’t react to an extreme price tag if those are the quotes I receive, with total shock and disbelief as my jaw hits the ground. I really appreciate your suggestions regarding high rise roof tops and could beat myself over the head for not thinking about contacting a building’s owner. I actually know the owners of one of the beachside resorts in the Shores and plan to make contact with them Monday. If they aren’t able or willing to rent space on their roof, maybe they can put me in touch with another building owner that can & will. I’m a bit embarrassed that I never thought about this on my own.

 

BoxCar, While I knew that towers over a certain height must follow certain protocols (I have always thought it was anything that exceeds 100’), I wasn’t familiar with the fact that the tower owner had to register the tower nor that the owner’s information would be available for me to access. I can’t thank you enough for the information.

 

Again, thanks to all of you for taking the time to reply and all of the valuable information. While I’m not new into using two way radios, I am new into GMRS and the setup and maintenance requirements, proper grounding and so much more involving a repeater system.

 

My background is 911 Communications and the Fire Service. We used the heck out of the radios and radio systems but programming, installing, maintenance and all the rest was handled by a different pay grade. I only thought I knew about this stuff and not until very recent did I find out the little bit of knowledge I actually did possess barely scratches the surface lol.

 

I am excited about the possibilities and cautiously optimistic that a reasonable solution can be realized, if not now, possibly in the near future. For now I am still planning to complete my tower installation and try running the repeater off of that first. Maybe I’ll have exceptional good luck and realize a better coverage area than I’m expecting. But hopefully I’ll have a fantastic option already in place should the need arise.

 

It’s refreshing to be associated with a group of folks so freely willing to answer questions and offer guidance to a newb and seemingly without judgement or attitude. I wish I could bottle that and share it with quite a few organizations I’ve been associated with in the past so that there new entries could have the same experience that I have had so far.

[marcspaz]

If you have property and are in a prime location, an option may be to work out a deal with a tower company. I have a friend of mine who has a lease agreement with a tower owner. They put a 200' tower on his land in exchange for free use of the tower and a percentage of the tower revenue. He has 5 amateur radio repeaters on the tower, a GMRS repeater, and the revenues were enough for him to retire early.

 

Something to think about if it's an option.

[JCase]

Howdy marcspaz,

 

I appreciate the suggestion, unfortunately I don’t have that kind of property.

 

Thanks again

[JCase]

Greetings all,

My apologies for not posting an update sooner. Just thought I would share that in my MANY repeated attempts to contact the tower owner of the site located off LPGA Blvd, between Wesley Street and Grand Preserve Way, have all resulted in no contact. I reach a recording when calling the number posted on the gate that instructs me to leave a short message and my contact information and a representative will be in contact. Unfortunately they never respond to my repeated messages (each 3 months apart). Regarding the beachside Hotels, I have been unsuccessful securing a rooftop spot, more than half of the owners that I attempted to contact wouldn’t even give me the time of day, the others just weren’t interested. If anyone has any other suggestions, please feel free to share. 
 

John