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Discarded AT&T Microwave Bunkers For Sale

Posted by chrisd on Wed Sep 11, 2002 08:38 PM
from the good-place-for-a-party dept.
Hardware
InitZero writes "American Tower is selling nearly 2000 old AT&T Long Line microwave locations that are no longer needed thanks to fiber. These towers -- spaced about 50 miles in every direction -- and their associated bunkers were designed to withstand World War III. The average location (find one near you) has two acres of land, 1,800 square feet worth of bunker and a tower of 200 feet. Some locations still have their hardware (60KW generator, microwave feedlines, equipment racks, feed horns, etc.) All this for an average price of just $25,000. If you're a ham radio operator, building a data center or just looking for a place to put your wireless access point, these locations look awesome."
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  • No replies yet, and it's slashdotted already?!?

    This sounds pretty cool. Who here has an extra $25,000 lying around?
    • If I had it, I'd buy one. That is, if I knew where they were. I guess the site was preemptively /.ed.

    • Re:Slashdotted? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonvmous Coward (589068) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:15PM (#4242143)
      "No replies yet, and it's slashdotted already?!?"

      Wouldn't most people read the article before replying? ::eyeroll::

      Okay, getting back on topic, is it possible to aim these things? I have a noisy neighbor that I'd like to ...uh.. provide free heating to.
    • > No replies yet, and it's slashdotted already?!?

      It appears slashdot has also been slashdotted.
      Take note of your 10:04 EST post and the 9:38 posting of the story.

      I'd like to see one of these towers put to better use with some bungi cords :-)

  • microwaves kick ass (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In many parts of the US, it gets very cold in the winter. The cold is even worse if you're working on a tower - they tend to be in high, exposed places due to their nature. This means more wind, lower temperatures, etc. Legend has it that tower crew would sometimes crawl into the microwave horns for a few seconds/minutes to warm up (for the same reasons you use a microwave to heat your dinner). That was all well and good, until one day a tech fell asleep in the warm, cozy horn.

    oops.

  • No kidding... I remember these well. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by djupedal (584558) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:07PM (#4242077)
    I was an Inspector on these in Northern Calif. I monitored the construction for a private firm. Concrete pours and steel, etc.

    They are hell-for-stout, no doubt. You could wipe out everything above ground in the US, and still get a dial tone. Most are in remote locations, naturally, and include fuel storage tanks (propane) and blast shielding. Just the ticket for anyone looking for the ultimate private bomb shelter.

    • Re:No kidding... I remember these well. (Score:5, Funny)

      by muffel (42979) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @11:23PM (#4242606)
      You could wipe out everything above ground in the US, and still get a dial tone.
      Yeah, if everything above ground in the US was wiped out, it would really suck to not get a dialtone.

      • Re:No kidding... I remember these well. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by djupedal (584558) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @11:49PM (#4242732)
        These were built by ITT, under contract to Uncle Sam, who didn't feel like bothering ground troops with terrestrial communications. The usual method of out-sourcing, only on a very large scale.

        The dialtone joke is just that...how can any govt. think it is doing the populace good by keeping the phonelines up when they won't be seeing daylight for a generation or two.

        Ok, I'll answer my own Q...they were spending cold war $$ while providing 'make work' for the communications industry. 'money' is the key word in why these were built, not concern for the American way.

  • Sadly... (Score:5, Funny)

    by descentr (296258) <descentr4.yahoo@com> on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:08PM (#4242079) Homepage
    It appears these bunkers will NOT protect you from the fury of Slashdot.

  • World War III... really? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Devil's BSD (562630) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:08PM (#4242082) Homepage
    Assuming there was a nuclear holocaust/World War III, how would a 500 ft microwave tower resist being blown down by a nuclear blast? Even if there is the bunker, the transmission effectiveness will be effectively zero without the tower.
    • Err, that's a 200 foot tower, buddy.
    • the tower could be re-erected (sounds like pr0n I know) quickly in the event that it was actually hit by the shockwave or direct blast. The important part is that the actual bunker remains intact.

    • blast pressure (Score:5, Informative)

      by rebelcool (247749) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:15PM (#4242147)
      is measured in lb/sq. inch. The reason the blast is so damaging to buildings is because of wall size magnifies the force to a few tons of pressure on the side of the wall. The towers if you notice, are open, thin bars that present little surface area for the blast to contact. What is exposed is well anchored.
  • I have fond memories of spending a strange summer night in the vicinity of one of these situated on a mountain pass when I was in high school. I'm just glad my fiends didn't climb the tower durring the gathering thundersorm.
  • 1800 square feet? Larger then many studio apartments. Heck larger then most studio apartments.

    I say setup a decent 'net connection and become a digital hermit. (e-hermit?)

  • take that, SIGINT sattelites! (Score:3, Funny)

    by cygnus (17101) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:11PM (#4242105) Homepage
    AT LAST! a location for my echelon spoofing site. ;)

  • These sites are awesome! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Newer Guy (520108) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:14PM (#4242140)
    I've been inside of several of them and they're simply awesome and must have cost a fortune to build and maintain. They have living quarters and water tanks. The equipment mostly ran off of banks of single cell (2 volt) batteries that were kept charged by utility power and generator. They used klystron transmitters I understand. Another cold war relic made obsolete I guess..but I can't help but be nostalgic for just a bit.. Can you?

    • Re:These sites are awesome! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nate B. (2907) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:34PM (#4242254) Homepage Journal
      I'm too young in the business to know, but I've been told by some of the elder techs in the company (we maintain a private microwave system) that the AT&T sites were laid out so identically to each other that a tech who knew his way around one could be blindfolded and taken into any site and would be able to work on the equipment. AT&T and the Bell System were big on standards so I don't doubt the accuracy of this claim.

      Even as careful as we are to try to maintain a standard layout, each of the sites I maintain all have their own quirks. But then, we have auxillary equipment that varies from site to site so that screws up the attempt at standardization.

  • More Long Lines information (Score:5, Informative)

    by ISAKMP (85791) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:15PM (#4242144)
    Mark Foster has another really nice Long Lines site [shore.net] that includes a table [shore.net] that lists many Long Lines facilites in many states, describes the equipment installed there and has photos of some of the facilities. He also provides the technical specifications [shore.net] for the construction of these sites, as well as photos from tour [shore.net] he took of a still-operating one.

  • Slashdotted Already? (Score:5, Informative)

    by MoodyLoner (76734) <moodyloner...ca@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:15PM (#4242150) Homepage Journal

    Guess I'm not the only one to dream of owning a nuke-resistant bunker.



    Here's the Google cache [216.239.51.100] of the site map to salivate over...



    Good news if you're back east or in the Bay Area, bad news otherwise.



    Say, wonder if Mrs. Moody would mind running a home daycare out of one of these?



  • Made for parties (Score:5, Funny)

    by fiori (45848) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:16PM (#4242165) Homepage
    Just fill the microwave horn with popcorn and fire-up that 60kW generator.

  • What's the point behind having bunkers here which can withstand nuclear attacks?

    The obvious answer would be that they wanted to ensure that the communications infrastructure would survive, but that doesn't make sense -- the towers would be destroyed quite easily, and without the towers, all the equipment protected in the bunkers would be useless anyway.

    Am I missing something here?
    • It's probably a lot easier to rebuild the tower after nuclear holocaust than to rebuild the tower and all the delicate equipment hooked up to it.

      If I could read the article, for all I know there could be an entire extra in pieces inside the bunker.

      Tim
  • It seems AT&T had a considerable investment in long distance buried coaxial cable. Apparently there was a pair of these cable laid a few miles away from here as a contractor was going through a few years back digging them back up and recovering them.

    As I recall from the local paper's article the cables were probably 4 to 6 inches in diameter and were then encased in lead. I also recall that they were buried several feet deep, at least deeper than water lines and regular phone cable gets buried around here.

    From my youth I recall an AT&T Long Lines bunker a few miles south of US 36 on US 75 north of Topeka, KS. I believe these cables went through there as they were on an east/west run through northern Kansas. Where the ultimate terminating points were would be a good exercise.

    Many old microwave sites are still standing around these parts. The tower lights and painting are still maintained. It's interesting that it apparently cost more to disassemble them than to leave them stand.

  • Broadband 2 boonies (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CrazyDuke (529195) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:20PM (#4242185)
    Am I the only one thinking of the possibility of buying 2 within signal distance of each other, one in a city where broadband is actually affordable, and one out in the boonies or small cities where at best people get 53K dialup and using it to set up a broadband ISP? $50,000 initial investment + permits is pretty steep still, though.

    Hell, or get paid for offering an alternative route for congested hops.

    • Re:Broadband 2 boonies (Score:5, Informative)

      by adolf (21054) <adolf@phreaker.net> on Wednesday September 11 2002, @10:53PM (#4242513)
      These things aren't in cities, for the most part.

      The one I'm familiar with is near Mount Cory, Ohio, and is situated in the middle of a corn field (or is it soybeans, this year?). It consists of a man-made hill, twenty-or-so feet tall, with a couple of small buildings on top. The tower itself is as other posters have described - not terribly tall (less than 200 feet), with an incredibly wide base. Giant feedhorns flow gracefully from it. I'm told by people who've been into it that the space below ground is much more expansive.

      High-tension transmission lines live nearby to supply power. It has its own substation.

      It would be a very poor choice as a location from which to which to distribute massive amounts of bandwidth.

      For one thing, a wireless ISP [comwavz.net] set up their NOC in an abandoned local telco building about a quarter-mile down the road from there. They constructed a rather monstrous, more modern-looking tower. I'd estimate height at 600' - it positively dwarfs the AT&T relay station.

      For another thing, it must have made more sense to build new, than buy the little relay station, or lease tower space, or whatever. Else, they wouldn't have done it. And if a couple-hundred feet would've been OK for this ruler-flat Ohio landscape, I doubt they'd have gone as far up as they did.

      And ironically, I had a conversation that went something like this when I had the comwavz installers at my house, not long after service rollout:

      Him: So, the DS-3 should be up Real Soon Now, after AT&T gets their head screwed on straight. For now, all we have is a T1.

      Me: Well, that's fine. What's the holdup on the DS-3?

      Him: I guess they can't figure out how to sell it to us via microwave.

      Me: This is the same AT&T with the relay station right over there [/me points], right?

      Him: Yeah. Strange, huh?

      It's -hard- to get bandwidth out in the sticks, even if you've got a cold war microwave relay within spitting distance. I doubt things would improve much by owning one or two instead of just being near one.
  • World War II involved the dropping of "The Bomb". The destructive force of the atomic bomb completely destroyed entire cities.

    World War III (for those not in the know, it hasn't started yet...) will probably involve much more powerful weapons than even the atomic bomb. Chances are this structure won't be able to withstand the force of this kind of weaponry.

    And if it does still stand after a bomb, chances are no one in your 50 mile area will be alive to hear your ham radio station.

  • Friend bought one (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lewie (3743) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:46PM (#4242298)
    A friend who owns a paging company just bought one of these. I tagged along during the negotiation and purchase. They are indeed, as a previous poster put it, "hell for stout." The scale of the tower, building and microwave cones makes the whole thing seem like a toy. It's just that weird. The towers are huge, this one is a 100 ft free-standing, 30 ft on a side IIRC with 25 foot tall microwave cones at the peak and associated waveguide down into the concrete buildings. This is a smaller installation, but still has huge power service and infrastructure, neat-o VW diesel inline 6 backup generator and enormous battery supply (the size of a truck or so), later added hardline to the top, it was a hell of a deal (more so considering how difficult towers are to get up these days).

    What really boggles my mind is the BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars that went into building these things in the 60's. They are truly incredible, inside and out. Someone decided that there WOULD be long distance (and there was).

    • Re:Friend bought one (Score:4, Informative)

      by djupedal (584558) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @10:02PM (#4242320)
      I worked on some of these (underground bunker types), as an Inspector (concrete/steel), during the early '70s. I recall at least one had to be abandoned due to several batches of concrete that failed strength testing in the lab. They simply covered it with dirt and moved over several hundred yards to begin again.

      They were heavily compartmented, and built much like a bank vault, where you have a box inside a box inside a box. There was at least one central cavity that was meant to be home for worst case attacks.

      As I recall, this was pre ATT, and they were built for ITT, under a government contract to provide domestic communications if WWW III (as stated) broke out. And yes, there was considerable money invested.

  • There's a good thing in this... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Newer Guy (520108) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @11:01PM (#4242541)
    Back in the olden days of satellite communications, all satellites operated on the "C" band. The bane of C band was "TI". TI stood for terrestrial interference...and these towers were the culprits! As a secondary service (these towers were the primary service), satellites were limited to very low powers (5-10 watts), so C band dishes had to be very large to pick up such feeble signals from space. Now that these are being decommissioned, maybe, just maybe, C band's potential can finally be realized. I can think of many uses of this slice of 2-4 Ghz spectrum...though the Govt. is probably already salivating at the prospect of another spectrum auction.
      • Ku-band satellites have more power and transponders because they are bigger, the limitation is in solar panel size, not in the frequencies used. Also, those transponder power figures are misleading. The newer satellites have big *maximum* power per transponder, but they cannot use all the transponders at full power at the same time, there simply isn't enough capacity at the solar panels.


        Ku is fine for broadcasting TV, in regions where there isn't too much rain. A good rainstorm will knock off Ku where C-band keeps going. One usually needs up to 8dB margin for rain attenuation alone in Ku-band, which means a 120 watt Ku transponder actually has as much useful power as a 20 watts C-band.


        For links with less bandwidth than video, where one can use smaller antennas, C-band is still the best.

        • First off, you have not come close to touching my point - C-Band is no longer the mainstream for home satellite reception. That is now Ku-Band. Circular Ku for DBS satellites, and Linear Ku for wackos like StarChoice.

          As for the difference in satellites? Telesat has been launching dual C/Ku band satellites for a while now. Its latest bird, Anik F1, has 48 Ku and 36 C-Band transponders. Cool eh? 90% of the C-Band equipment installed in North American homes can only pick up 24 of those C-Band transponders.

          Anik F1's Ku can be reliably picked up with an 18" dish (I know through experience) and C-Band still needs a 6'er.

          As far as rain fade goes, yes. It is an issue with Ku band. the 5 minute breaks I've suffered 3 times in the past year have been horrible. I had to go read slashdot instead.

          None of this changes the fact that C-Band is becoming used less and less for home tv reception. Anik F1 is a prime example - All its C-Band transponders are currently in use are for commercial use, or use by the CBC, for cross-country satellite interviews, or for sending live feeds from one part of the country to another.

  • Ask Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)

    by evilviper (135110) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @11:11PM (#4242575) Journal
    Dear Slashdot. As a head of state in Iraq, I've been plann...umm, I mean, *worried* about the vague posibility that World War 3 will start on Nov 23, 2002. Can you possibly recomend a bomb shelter that would withstand a direct hit from a 10K-Ton U.S Titan missle?

    Note: Resistance to oncomming ground troops is a big plus.

    (if you don't get it, just move along)

  • Was This Public Property? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by N8F8 (4562) on Thursday September 12 2002, @07:11AM (#4243759)
    Since AT&T/Bell used to be a monopoly, did the government help pay for and construct these sites? If so, how does a private company end up selling these?

  • Fiber huh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by msheppard (150231) on Thursday September 12 2002, @07:22AM (#4243780) Homepage Journal
    Maybe some of that fiber should be run to whatever machine is hosting the website.

    M@

  • Long Line Information (Score:3, Informative)

    by jwilhelm (238084) on Thursday September 12 2002, @07:36AM (#4243825) Homepage Journal
    AT&T Long Lines Places and Routes [addr.com] contains a list of Maps, Diagrams and Lists relating to the AT&T Long Line Bunkers.

  • Looks like a bargain to me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by torklugnutz (212328) on Thursday September 12 2002, @09:28AM (#4244465) Homepage
    This sounds even better than a Missile Silo [missilebases.com]

    First off, it's cheaper.
    Secondly, these are more conveniently located
    Lastly, it looks like there's a lot more of these than missile silos.

    For $25k, it's a cheap way to get a couple of acres with some improvments.

  • nuclear blast design criteria (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mlas (165698) on Thursday September 12 2002, @11:18AM (#4245245) Homepage
    While browsing some of the supplied links, ran across this page [archive.org], which is a summary of the design criteria the engineers used for these sites. The site vary in "hardness"-- that is, their ability to withstand a nuclear blast-- but the top level sites were designed to withstand:
    • 2 1/2 miles from 20 megaton blast
    • 1000 Miles per hour wind
    • 40 G shock wave
    • high velocity debris
    • Intense radiation, heat and electromagnetic effects

    Given that wind resistance for a given surface area increases exponentially (I think... been a long time since physics class), that 1000mph figure is astounding.

    Also this: "Above ground structure (microwave and troposcatter antennas) require at least two thirds of the structure to be below grade to prevent tilting or rotation". Does that mean these 200ft towers are rooted 400ft deep?

  • IMPORTANT INFORMATION (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheSHAD0W (258774) on Thursday September 12 2002, @02:59PM (#4246915) Homepage
    After expressing interest in two sites, I received this email response:

    From: Ross Elder
    To: 'John Hoffman'
    Subject: RE: Sites of interest
    Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 15:44:03 -0400

    Please note that the message posted yesterday on Slash Dot is incorrect.
    American Tower Corporation has only a limited number of Surplus towers for
    sale that can be accessed by clicking "Sites For Sale" on our home page.
    These are the only towers that are for sale. Please also note that these
    Surplus sites are sold on a strictly "as is-where is", all cash basis.

    If the site you are inquiring about is not on the "Sites For Sale" list,
    then it is not for sale.

    If you are interested in a Surplus site, please contact me via email.

    If you are having difficulty accessing our website, please try again later
    as we were experiencing technical difficulties earlier today.

    Thanks,

    Ross Elder
    Senior VP/Development
    American Tower Corporation
    The actual list of available sites can be downloaded at:
    http://www.americantower.com/acweb/ATCSDMAREP02/Pu blic%20Reports/Marketing/AvailableSitesList.xls [americantower.com]

    • nevermind (Score:3, Informative)

      by victim (30647)
      Someone please mod the parent into oblivion. I believe that is the active site list, not the surplus site list.

    • Re:EMP Hardening (Score:4, Informative)

      by Phasedshift (415064) on Wednesday September 11 2002, @09:16PM (#4242158)
      According to the page that is linked in the summary http://www.drgibson.com/towers/ It mentions:

      The buildings supporting the towers were hardened against a nuclear blast, and some of them in high-danger areas were underground. The towers themselves were engineered to withstand all but a close (within 5 miles) blast. The microwave horns were covered with a protective shield to keep out not only the elements, but also radioactive fallout. The buildings were shielded with copper to protect the equipment against the Electromagnetic Pulse associated with a nuclear explosion. Foot-thick concrete walls protected the vital electronics and people inside the base installations of these towers. Thick copper grounds went deep into the bedrock beneath each tower. Fallout showers, backup generators, sleeping facilities all existed to keep the network up in times of war.

      So while the equipment itself is likely hardened, the building is shielded.. It doesn't say how much shielding, etc there is however :)
        • You can't shield against EMP with a conductor unless it completely encloses the entire system. A communication tower MUST have cables going to unsheilded equipment. Shielding communication equipment would cause the equipment to malfunction, and I didn't see a giant copper shield around the towers in the pictures.
          Yeah, those guys at Bell Labs and Bell Systems Engineering were real boneheads. I doubt they had any understanding of EMP, despite having designed the only working anit-ballistic missle system and having done extensive work in the effects of the warheads of those missles. Nor did they know the first thing about the effects of magnetic fields and radiation on telephone systems - they just managed to build a worldwide voice network over the course of 100 years. Yep, a bunch of nincompoops wasting their time.

          sPh


    • > Oh, and imagine a nationwide Beowulf cluster of these.

      Actually, it might be a good way to set up a disaster-resistant beowulf cluster. One node per bunker, interconnect via the towers. Keep those protein-folding analyses running even after the species is extinct...

      Well, at least it would give the alien archaeologists something interesting to puzzle over. And introduce them to the idea of beowulf clusters, so the joke could infect their civilization as well.

        • I just realized how small a 60kW generator is. Our backup generator has a 500 gallon tank and would only run for about 42 hours on a tank. So it must be able to do at least 120kW (this was for a recent summer power outage, running a datacent, 180 person office and A/C for the datacenter.) This generator is big don't get me wrong (about the size of a small semi) but something half that size is not what I invisioned when I heard 60kW.

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