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Hardware

Discarded AT&T Microwave Bunkers For Sale 342

Posted by chrisd from the good-place-for-a-party dept.
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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Discarded AT&T Microwave Bunkers For Sale

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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?

    • Re:Slashdotted? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rmohr02 ( 208447 )
      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 :-)
    • What do I look like, a .com millionaire? *snicker*
    • i think the idea is to buy several... the good thing about this offer is that you can get a lot of em that are all withing range of each other... so really we need hundreds of thousands of dollars which might not be too much for some of the crazy hams out there...
    • This sounds pretty cool. Who here has an extra $25,000 lying around?

      I wish I did.... I think I'd cut the top of the tower down, and build a nice little open plan shelter on the strong platform that holds the bigger dishes. Keep the bunker for amenities and (really) bad-weather sleeping quarters, and have myself a nice elevated living area with a great view!

  • 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@yaho[ ]om ['o.c' in gap]> 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.
  • 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?)
    • 1800 square feet? Larger then many studio apartments. Heck larger then most studio apartments.
      But chickenshit compared to the redneck ranches typical of the area around those remote tower sites...
    • Make sure Amazon and Thinkgeek will deliver there first. (:
    • 1800 square feet? Larger then many studio apartments. Heck larger then most studio apartments. 1800 sq. feet is twice my two bedroom apartment in Boston, and six times a Studio...

  • 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.

    • Klystron, like they use at Fermilab [uiuc.edu] to accelerate protons?

  • 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 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <ac.renolydoom>> 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
      • The most fortifies of sites were designed to be 2.5 miles from a 20 megaton nuke strike and survive, these were sites near prime military targets, then there were slightly less hardened ones for withing 5 miles, and then basically non hardened site for anything further. More info here [shore.net]

  • Not just microwave (Score:2, Informative)

    by Nate B. ( 2907 )
    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 ) <flodadolf@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @10:53PM (#4242513) Journal
      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.
      • There is/was one near Chicago, it was along I-294 north to Milwaulkee. It got remade, and the towers removed, and was used for AT&T something or another, as it still had a AT&T sign on last time I saw it, which was years ago.
  • 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.

    • Re:World War III? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by be-fan ( 61476 )
      Umm, World War III was planned to happen back in the 60's. That's what these things were built to withstand.

    • World War III (for those not in the know, it hasn't started yet...)

      A bit off topic, but not entirely... What defines a "world war"? A war to end all wars? Armageddon? Or just a large number of countries banded together to fight another large group of countries banded together?

      One year ago today may very well be seen in distant history texts as the beginning of WW3, just not the one that we were told would happen when we were growing up. This war will be fought over the cultural divide of the haves vs. the have-nots. If/when Bush snipes Saddam, and marches into Baghdad, the Arab nations will be PISSED, and not only withhold oil, but unleash their wrath upon us. This could very well mean chemical, biological, or nuclear attacks.

      Isreal will be one of the major fronts, and fighting (as we've seen already) will not be limited to the fronts, but will happen everywhere, even with legislation in our government.

      That's how I view WW3... and it started a long time ago.

      • It cannot mean nuclear attacks as no arab nation has or is likely to have in the near future nuclear capabilities. We would probably turn large chunks of desert into glass before we allowed an arab state to have nuclear weapons. There is one muslim state with nukes and that is pakistan, but they have their own problems on their hands to the south and want all the support they can get from us.
        • no arab nation has or is likely to have in the near future nuclear capabilities

          Read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Rhodes. The hard part is getting ahold of weapons grade uranium or plutonium. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Iran or Libya had atomic bombs.

          • Actually, the even harder part is the delivery.
            • on where you're delivering it. Iran and Libya (and Israel) already have missiles that can reach most of the mid-east (and in the case of Libya, Europe). They also have aircraft that can carry the weapons. They may not have intercontinental capability, but then they don't particularly need it.
            • Fed Ex. When you absolutely, positively have to deliver over night.

              Or for that matter a shipping container on a ship works just fine and leaves no return address.

        • you're ruling out all those Russian suitcase nuclear bombs. sure, they may not fly in on a missle, nor have the biggest blast, but they could easily wipe out a population.

      • So are the the oil-rich, Rolls-Royce driving Arabs the haves or the have-nots?

    • Not nessicarly. WWI was mainly chemical weapons (mustard gas). After all seeing what those weapons did to people, niether side in WWII was willing to be first to use them (even though both sides had more descructive chemical weapons) first because of they didn't want retaliation.

      I belive that WWII with bigger weapons helped to prevent a neculear war in the 60's. The last act of WWII was neculear weapons, and the descruction was a roll model. Both sides in the 60's knew that the other could take them out if they started a war, and niether was willing to risk it. (Mutually assured destruction works so long as nobody crazy is in charge)

      Current military thinking is to destroy only targets. In the gulf war the military braged about their ability to get one building in a city without bothering others. (though in truth they didn't succede, that was the goal)

      WWIII won't be faught for a few years anymore. WWI was building in Europe for years, people actually danced in celebration of war being declared. I've encountered many europeans who think that WWI was a good thing, the world NEEDED a war then! Right now nobody thinks need a war. (Though perhaps the terrorist thing could be considered that - I optimisticly hope not)

  • To quote Strong Bad [homestarrunner.com], "too much of a good thing is an awesome thing. But too much of an awesome thing is ... umm ... really, really dumb."

    This is almost too much of an awesome thing. But it's awesome nonetheless.
  • Heck, 2 acres is a decent plot of land for a house. Plus you got a generator! How can you lose? Use the tower to put an access point up and you can have wireless all over your land, and charge neighbors for access :-)

  • 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.
  • Now I and my friends can LARP the userfriendly.org story arc where they moved into a missile silo!

    Yes!

  • I have been trying since before there were even replies in the comments section and I have yet to see anything more then the splash page sans images (via Google Cache). Anyone have any idea where these towers are? Are there any in Texas? The wife and I are looking for a country house and this would make a hell of a start. ;)
    • 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.
  • Seems like a perfect opportunity for amateur radio clubs to line up to purchase new facilities. In addition, these things seem great for building out a high-bandwidth microwave infrastructure to give hams VOIP.

    Great place for an APRS node, ATV repeater, or even just a regular old 2m or 440 repeater.

  • 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.
    • Not a chance pal.
      With DTH providers like Dish & DirecTV in the states (destined to be one company?) and Starchoice and Bell ExpressVu in Canada, C-Band is only for hobbyists. Having worked as a C-Band tech for years, I say this from experience, not conjecture.
      C-Band satellites have 24 transponders, Ku (what they use for DTH) have more, 30, 32 are not uncommon. Ku satellites can also be much more powerful. Anik F1, the Starchoice bird is capable of 120 watts. Most importantly, using MPEG compression on the DTH services lets one satellite carry what C-Band saw on 20 satellites, requiring C-Band customers to have an actuator arm, and usually a polarizer motor in the 'nose' of the dish.

      Customers are switching to 'little dish' because it's less of a set-up fee, lower maintaince, lower visibility. C-Band customers that cling to their big ugly dish have to maintain it and buy more expensive gear for it. (Here, a C-Band digital receiver runs 4 times the cost of a little-dish receiver)
      • 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.
  • Good place to put your MP3's before Palladium kicks in.

  • 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)
    • Dear Slashdot- As the commander-in-brief of a large western nation, I've been plann... umm, I mean, I'm worried about pointlessly thrusting the world into a large, sectarian war. Can you suggest any strong, nuclear/biological/chemical-proof bomb shelters located in or around Crawford, Texas?

      Note: Resistance to common sense is a big plus.
  • There would have been a much greater market for these during the all the Y2K madness. $25000 is cheap for a professionally built bunker (and a place to ride out the apocalypse).

  • Abandoned bell sites (Score:2, Informative)

    by aaronsb ( 138360 )
    Somebody posted an XLS document listing all their sites, both active and inactive. I graphed the data out and listed the geographical location of the inactive sites. Go to http://aaron.cyberfreakout.com/inactivebell.htm to view it.

    I would imagine that they're trying to sell the inactive ones...
  • 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 misslesilo@lasers.org [mailto] Must be sold before end of September, 2002 also 15k sq/ft underground storage at another hardened facility $2.50/ sqft.

  • 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.
  • I took the Excel list of all of the sites and pushed it into a data mapping program based on latitude and longitude. The following results I thought odd:

    - There are 15 in the middle of the Atlantic
    - There are 5 in Mauritania
    - There's even one in northern Mali

    Talk about your far-reaching communications network!

    - Freed

  • 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]

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