How to advertise available tower space?

[MidnightMan]

Hi Everyone! I'm a long time lurker but just created an account. 

I own a modest amateur grade tower on a local mountain with a HAAT of about 700ft (the tower is a 100ft tower but only currently raised to 70ft).

It's definitely not the type of setup a cellular provider would be interested in. I'm more interested in advertising to GMRS people or the Amateur Radio community.

I tried emailing the info to my local Amateur Radio club and they basically told me "good luck bro" and did nothing with the info. 

I currently have a 2m amateur radio repeater on the very top of the tower but everything below that is available. The coverage area is roughly 40-60 miles in all directions depending on your setup. 

For reference the tower is in North Alabama, near Huntsville.

So where should I advertise something like this? Craigslist? Or is there somewhere better? 

 

 

[Guest]

Does the area NEED a repeater?  Are there other good  repeaters covering the same area?   Might just not have a call for it.   If there is a call for it this site is a good start.   Could start your own gmrs club.  Does the tower site have back up generators, Solar, battery?    All things people are going to want/need when paying for a site. 

[MidnightMan]

5 minutes ago, WRXP381 said:

Does the area NEED a repeater?  Are there other good  repeaters covering the same area?   Might just not have a call for it.   If there is a call for it this site is a good start.   Could start your own gmrs club.  Does the tower site have back up generators, Solar, battery?    All things people are going to want/need when paying for a site. 

There are multiple GMRS repeaters in the area but they are all low profile low coverage systems. They have 4 repeaters covering an area that a single one on my tower would cover easily. I tried to contact the local GMRS club but their website is broken and the contact fields don't work 

My equipment has a backup power system but only for my stuff, there isn't anything else there. 

 

All I can really provide is utility power, internet, and the tower space itself. 

[WRKC935]

Your first issue is you are marketing to people that don't want to pay for space.  Ham clubs are notoriously cheap.  And even if they have 4 repeaters to cover an area that could be covered by one repeater on your tower, those agreements are already in place and working.  

You mentioned that the tower 'is only raised to 70 feet' but could go higher.  Is this some crank up tower or do you just have additional sections sitting there to be put on top? 

Is the tower properly installed and guyed correctly or is this on a property formally owned by a ham operator that started installing a tower and just never finished it?  Wind loading and tower stability is a thing.  And having hams tell you good luck is a concern unless you started quoting costs to them for rent and they lost interest at that point. 

There use to be places on most of the major vertical real estate companies web sites that you could register a location for consideration.  If the site is marketable, they may come in and build a tower.  But that will only happen if they have a tenant for the site already.  But the site needs to be marketable.  There has to be a need for anyone to want to occupy the space.  And just because it's a good site for coverage of the surrounding area doesn't mean that area needs coverage.  There is a lot that goes into mapping out tower coverage, first of which is population of the covered area.  There are HUGE swaths of land out west that have zero towers.  That's due to the fact there are people in those areas.  There needs to be users in the coverage area for it to make any sense to build out that coverage area. 

And if this is a crank up tower, then no you don't have space below the top.  Crank up towers are designed to come down.  If you start connecting stuff to the tower below the top, then it will not retract.  Not sure if that's the case here. But I figured I would mention it. 

 

EDIT:  One other thing.  If this is sitting on a 600 foot hill, it's getting to the point it's too tall for good local coverage.  Special antenna's with down tilt would need to be used (very expensive) to drive the signal down and not at the horizon for it to have good coverage in close.  I have seen repeater installs fail to cover area's close to the site but talk 90 miles out because the antenna was a high gain design and basically talked over the area close to the tower.

 

[SteveShannon]

2 hours ago, WRKC935 said:

Ham clubs are notoriously cheap. 

In many cases this is because we have little money.  We are not allowed to charge for any amateur radio services (rightfully so) and the reason we become a club is to share enjoyment in the hobby.  Members often pay for things out of their own pocket just in order to make things happen while the  majority of the club membership sit back and enjoy the club activities.

The OP might be better off donating some tower space in exchange for a tax deduction.

[MidnightMan]

I think yall are missing the point of the question here. I asked where I should advertise it. 

I did NOT ask for your opinions on the structure itself.

And don't try to make the claim that what you're saying is relevant to my question. It's not. If someone sees the listing and doesn't like the setup, that's up to them to decide. But first the listing has to be up. That's what I'm asking. 

I will not market to some commercial company to try and have them build a tower. THAT WAS NOT THE QUESTION and wasn't even in the scope of this project whatsoever. 

Don't worry about the wind loading or configuration. That's completely irrelevant to the question. Unless YOU are an advertising agent, you simply don't need that info to answer my question. 

Please don't be thick in the head here. If you don't know, you don't know. Don't try and blow smoke up my ass all day to make yourself think you are being helpful. 

[SteveShannon]

Good luck bro!

[WRZK593]

6 hours ago, MidnightMan said:

I think yall are missing the point of the question here. I asked where I should advertise it. 

I did NOT ask for your opinions on the structure itself.

And don't try to make the claim that what you're saying is relevant to my question. It's not. If someone sees the listing and doesn't like the setup, that's up to them to decide. But first the listing has to be up. That's what I'm asking. 

I will not market to some commercial company to try and have them build a tower. THAT WAS NOT THE QUESTION and wasn't even in the scope of this project whatsoever. 

Don't worry about the wind loading or configuration. That's completely irrelevant to the question. Unless YOU are an advertising agent, you simply don't need that info to answer my question. 

Please don't be thick in the head here. If you don't know, you don't know. Don't try and blow smoke up my ass all day to make yourself think you are being helpful. 

You may have just ostracized yourself. Good luck bro.

[WRUU653]

Pin a piece off paper with your tower info and little precut tear away tabs with your phone number at the local laundromat bulletin board… I hope this helps, good luck bro.

[Hoppyjr]

You may have just ostracized yourself. Good luck bro.

It seems there are countless people who lack any self awareness.

Post a question to random strangers on an Internet forum, then criticize their answers. Similar to the guy on the thread about “linked repeaters” who seems to think his arrogant replies are winning the day.

Reminds me of…..

[WRUE951]

9 minutes ago, Hoppyjr said:

It seems there are countless people who lack any self awareness.

Post a question to random strangers on an Internet forum, then criticize their answers. Similar to the guy on the thread about “linked repeaters” who seems to think his arrogant replies are winning the day.

Reminds me of…..

Being a bit ‘fratty’ are ya. Enjoy your ‘boys’. 

[GreggInFL]

On 9/9/2024 at 3:00 PM, MidnightMan said:

For reference the tower is in North Alabama, near Huntsville.

So where should I advertise something like this? Craigslist? Or is there somewhere better? 

You could always try Craigslist of course.  After all, it's free.

Since this is a commercial effort you might invest in some ads.  I've noticed there are many regional GMRS Facebook groups, like this: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1126970474062888

[SteveShannon]

This sight (mygmrs.com) has a classified ads section for its premium members. I think everyone can see it, but only premium members can post ads. 

[WRKC935]

On 9/10/2024 at 1:19 PM, MidnightMan said:

I think yall are missing the point of the question here. I asked where I should advertise it. 

I did NOT ask for your opinions on the structure itself.

And don't try to make the claim that what you're saying is relevant to my question. It's not. If someone sees the listing and doesn't like the setup, that's up to them to decide. But first the listing has to be up. That's what I'm asking. 

I will not market to some commercial company to try and have them build a tower. THAT WAS NOT THE QUESTION and wasn't even in the scope of this project whatsoever. 

Don't worry about the wind loading or configuration. That's completely irrelevant to the question. Unless YOU are an advertising agent, you simply don't need that info to answer my question. 

Please don't be thick in the head here. If you don't know, you don't know. Don't try and blow smoke up my ass all day to make yourself think you are being helpful. 

OK, then... We have a live one here. 

Part of what I do for a living is track down and market vertical real estate for commercial radio use.  So while you may think I don't know what I am talking about, I can assure you I do. 

So I will now just spell it out.  If you don't have interest from ham operators then you are wanting too much money, or your tower is crap.  But it could be a combination of the two.  There aren't but two reasons that a tower that is height X can be 'easily extended' 30 feet to height Y.  It's either some crankup deal or someone got lazy and decided to not stack the rest of the tower. 

And you are in the same state as this

https://www.kxan.com/news/national-news/ap-200-foot-radio-station-tower-stolen-without-a-trace-in-alabama-silencing-small-towns-voice/

So anything to do with a tower in that state is sketchy to begin with.  But maybe that's where the tower came from to begin with. 

If you are actually wanting to generate profit from the site, advertising it on Craigslist ain't gonna help.  Neither is finding hobby radio web sites and forums thinking you are going to find paying customers.  And assuming you have already approached all the commercial radio shops and got laughed out of the building and are marketing to hams and GMRS users on web forums tells me this thing must be a peach of a tower.  Which is why I mentioned that if the site is marketable and desirable you might consider listing it with the big three vertical real estate companies.  They will come in, tear down your crap, put up a multi carrier tower and let you park your stuff on it and PAY YOU to do it.  But of course the site needs to be desirable to them.   My guess is it's not. 

 

So, like the ham's and numerous others have said.   Good Luck.

[WRKC935]

On 9/10/2024 at 10:12 AM, SteveShannon said:

The OP might be better off donating some tower space in exchange for a tax deduction.

Don't know if he approached it from that angle,,,, but if they just told him 'good luck' something ain't right about it.  I have seen damn few towers that some ham would pass on putting stuff on.  Especially if the price was right.  So I really question what's wrong with the site overall that would illicit that response.

 

[LeeBo]

On 9/11/2024 at 10:52 PM, WRKC935 said:

And you are in the same state as this

https://www.kxan.com/news/national-news/ap-200-foot-radio-station-tower-stolen-without-a-trace-in-alabama-silencing-small-towns-voice/

 

Now that's just crazy!!!

[WRKC935]

13 hours ago, LeeBo said:

Now that's just crazy!!!

Google search the whole story if you want crazy.  As odd as stealing a tower sounds, the rest of it is really out there.

 

[WRUU653]

10 hours ago, WRKC935 said:

Google search the whole story if you want crazy.  As odd as stealing a tower sounds, the rest of it is really out there.

 

I agree. Much much more to this story than just a tower missing. That site looked to be abandoned for a long time.

[GreggInFL]

Reminds me of a friend who ended up with a rusty, 500' radio tower as part of an estate.  His question was, how do we knock it down?  He threw the question out on a forum and much hilarity ensued.