Discarded AT&T Microwave Bunkers For Sale

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."

No kidding... I remember these well.

[djupedal]

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:Slashdotted?

[rmohr02]

If I had it, I'd buy one. That is, if I knew where they were. I guess the site was preemptively /.ed.

These sites are awesome!

[Newer Guy]

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?

Broadband 2 boonies

[CrazyDuke]

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:These sites are awesome!

[Nate B.]

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.

Re:World War III?

[be-fan]

Umm, World War III was planned to happen back in the 60's. That's what these things were built to withstand.

Friend bought one

[Lewie]

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:No kidding... I remember these well.

[djupedal]

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.

FOR SALE: Titan-1 Site, Colorado (Must Sell)

[rMuD]

Selling a 3 Silo, 65k sq/ft 1 Mile Nuke Rated site, Near Denver... a Tour of a site 5 miles away Missle Silo Tour [triggur.org] This site is the same design except that it hasn't been vandalized, has power, and is not flooded (except silo's) Comes with complete Plans Serious Inquiries Only [e-mail] [mailto] Must be sold before end of September, 2002 also 15k sq/ft underground storage at another hardened facility $2.50/ sqft.

Re:Anyone actually seeing the site?

[djupedal]

I worked on ones built in Northern Calif. To my knowledge, they were normally placed in the middle of no where, frequently without improved access roads, etc. The locations were generally picked with a bias towards line of site to the next tower, etc. Scenery and bubbling brooks were never on the shopping list. Just the occasional oak tree and rattle snake. But if you're living below the horizon, I guess the view from the kitchen is always uninspiring.

I did concrete and steel inspection. One batch of concrete samples failed about a month after the main ceiling was poured (hot day and the cement trucks were waiting in line)...the result was that the contractor was held responsible, with the 90% completed structure being abandoned. They buried it and moved over a bit and built again. If you can find that site, you can get two-for-one. Look north east of Sacramento....about two hours out.

Re:Build a house!

[afidel]

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.

Re:Secret Nuclear Bunker

[Memetic]

It's not a micorwave relay site, that's just part of it!

It was to be the seat of government for a post WWIII UK.

The Bunker Website [demon.co.uk] here has loads of info.

Nice fact, all the defenses were designed to keep the general public out in times of strife and the one time it was fully stocked and ready to be buttoned up.... during our miners strike in the 1980's

Was This Public Property?

[N8F8]

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?

Re:There's a good thing in this...

[mangu]

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.

Looks like a bargain to me

[torklugnutz]

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

[mlas]

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?