abandoned radio tower

[WSFL951]

Does anyone know of any abandoned radio towers near Illinois?

[WSIK532]

Great Question.

[nokones]

If it is abandoned, one would think there is a legitimate reason why it is abandoned. Abandoned radio towers are not common.

[OffRoaderX]

17 minutes ago, nokones said:

If it is abandoned, one would think there is a legitimate reason why it is abandoned

Duh! Obviously would be because its haunted!

[tweiss3]

Or hoarded by Crown Castle or another monopoly.

[WSHH887]

Well not exactly a haunted radio tower (although there is an early 1900's radio antenna on top of it), but the old Pacific Theaters building on Hollywood Blvd. is definitely haunted on the roof.  Story is someone jumped off the buildings roof to commit suicide.  

I got the contract to take care of the cooling and heating systems located on the roof.  Stuff happened.  Things moved without obvious external effect.  Sounds (including a scream) would burst forth without cause.  Then there was the just freaky way you felt up there.  

 

Maybe if there are abandoned radio tower around, they are abandoned for good reason.  

[nokones]

22 minutes ago, WSHH887 said:

Story is someone jumped off the buildings roof to commit suicide.  

I

That must have been during the Timothy Leary days.

[WRKC935]

Well, define 'abandoned'.

There are a number of towers that are owned by someone, all over the US that are not currently active, but are not by what I believe you are inferring, abandoned.

Many are indeed owned by the major vertical real estate companies like Crown Castle or American Tower.  Some are owned but private individuals or businesses that are not in the vertical real estate business, but do own the property a tower sits on. 

You are no doubt asking because you want to put up a repeater and think if you can find an abandoned tower, that you can just roll up in there and get to work putting up a repeater on it and no one will care.  Well, good luck with that. 

First issue is there isn't a piece of property anywhere in the US that's not owned or claimed by someone else already.  And if there is a tower on it, someone put that tower there. 

As a person that manages and maintains a tower.  Like a real tower, not a 20 foot pipe on the end of my house, but a 240 foot microwave tower sitting on 1.3 acre's of land with a building.  Here's what you face, IF you can find an abandoned tower or one that someone will allow you to have full access to.

First is an electric bill.  Because you simply are NOT going to find some rich benefactor that will not only allow you access to their tower, but pay your power bill as well.

Second is the building condition.  If it's truly abandoned, and unused, then it's not being maintained.  So the roof will leak, the door may or may not even close.  You may face it being full of animals, birds and lots of poop.  Bird poop will give you an incurable disease.  Don't remember what it's called, but look it up,  it's a thing.  So getting the building ready to put a repeater in might require a hazmat suit and respirator to just be in and out of the thing.  And mold.... yeah, gonna be plenty of that too.

Now, getting the power turned back on may well require permits, and civil engineering plans with PE stamps to obtain the permits.  We had to do that too.  More money.

If the crack heads have been there stealing wire, then you are rewiring the building.  Again, been there and done that.  More money.

Then there is the tower.  What shape is it really in?  Is it a guyed tower, or free standing?  Is it rusted or in reasonable shape?  Guyed towers will hide dangers.  The anchor heads will rust just below the ground and you will not see that if you don't dig them up.  Simply attempting to climb a tower with that issue may cause the tower to fall, with you on it.  Then there is the base pier, the grouting and all that other stuff that since you are asking this question, you know nothing about.  You don't posses the knowledge to even judge the structural integrity of the tower to begin with.   This can create TWO issues.  First is simple.  If you are on the tower and it falls, you die.

Second issue is you have someone else on the tower and it falls, they die, and you get sued by both the tower owner in front of 12 people that have equally no clue about a tower but know YOU were allowed to access it and it's down and someone died.  And not only will the family of the dead guy be suing you, but so will the tower site owner to claim you were at fault, and responsible, but also to protect himself from that family from coming after him.  Just depends on who gets to the court house first with the lawyers to file the suit.

A friend told me once ' I can't afford free" and free towers typically very few can afford, and they don't figure that out until they have made some level of commitment to do something with a site that they have no business being involved with.

But I will tell you this.  There are NO FREE ABANDONED towers anywhere that you are gonna just walk into and put up  a repeater at without significant cost.  And remember that we haven't talked about repeaters, cable, antenna's or any of that yet.