Sirens and cell towers

[Brendan Ahern]

Not sure if this is the best forum for this but hear goes....

My city is allowing AT&T to build a cell tower behind one of our fire stations. This tower will also replace their lattice radio tower at this location. AT&T is building the whole thing at their cost, then turning it over to the city. My guess is they will get to lease the tower rent free for a number of years. There is also room on the tower for 2 additional carriers.

There is an E-Class that was installed on a new pole at this location in 2013. Supposedly the siren itself will be transferred to this new cell tower at an appropriate height. So far the tower went up this week, but the siren has not been moved. They said that it will be moved in a day and then reactivated. The siren will remain on its pole hooked up to utility power and be live up until that time. I really hope they move it now, it is not ideal the way it is. The new tower totally blocks 2 of the horns.

Anyway, thought you guys would find this interesting so I thought I'd share. I will take more pics of the progress as it goes. No workers were there today due to high winds today.

I took this picture back in February of 2013 right after this siren was installed.
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I took this picture today to show the current changes. When the project is finished the equipment on the lattice pole will be moved to the new tower along with the siren. The wooden siren pole and lattice tower will then be permanently removed.

[CycloneFan125]

Just mount that on the side of the cell tower halfway up like how Kenosha County WI did with two of their P-15's.

[r4tbolts]

Actually it is good they are waiting. Probably waiting because it takes a long time to schedule electric hook up, inspections and such. I've seen many new sirens go up in Michigan. It seems 3 months is the norm before the sirens actually connected to the power lines. Locally here a 2001 was relocated and it is going on 4 months with no power line connection. Not sure why it takes so long for electric hook up maybe some one here on ARS could answer that.

[Spencerlovestrains]

Here is a 2016 in Fort Wayne by Homestead High School

[Brendan Ahern]

Utility connections are a funny thing. At my previous job I was in charge of utilities for the company I worked for. For the electric utility to solve/fix a problem was usually pretty fast. Getting a new service put in however, was always a huge pain. For one, they are usually backlogged with new service requests. They give you a date, and on that date they come hook up to the pole and put a meter in the meter base. The way I would do it, is I would talk to our electricians and come up with a date they could be ready for power. I would then call the utility and set up the appointment. By the time they got to us, we would be ready for them and have no delays.

IIRC, when these sirens were installed, power was up fairly quickly. Like a matter of a few weeks vs. a few months. The sirens were installed in Feb/March of 2013 and they were being tested in early April.

I don't know how they will power this siren once they move it. If it will be running off the electric service for the cell tower or not. I don't see them putting in a new overhead lateral for a siren mounted to a monopole though, like it is now. It is interesting to see the process unfold. Whatever they do, it looks like it this tower will be up for many many years.

[r4tbolts]

Thanks for the explanation Brendan.

[Brendan Ahern]

So I figured I would do an update since the work looks to be completed. They moved the fire department antennas to the new cell tower but not the siren. The siren is on its original wooden pole still and looks like it will stay there. The original plan was to mount it to the tower, but I guess the plan changed. They did rework the power though. It used to have a metered overhead line to the nearest power pole. That has been removed and now there is an underground line coming from somewhere to some sort of junction box, then from there they used seal tite cable to the disconnect. Meter has been removed. Not sure it really warrants a picture, just wanted to close this topic out.

[Synther]

I guess this counts?
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.451473, ... 312!8i6656

[Brendan W]

https://goo.gl/maps/isPx4KjmUVQ2

Here's a doozy: Thunderbeam at the senior center in Hoover, Alabama.




Fun fact (if applicable): Luke's Square Horned Hurricane was originally mounted on an AT&T Long Lines microwave tower. The Centralia Junction site to be exact.

[Valra Bellkeys]

https://goo.gl/maps/pnGaLnQdtgu This looks extremely good with the siren to be honest. I