ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Sealth Antennae

John,

Have you seen the small remote towers being used around here by Verizon yet? It hangs on a street light, plugs into the street lights power, is about the size of a small suitcase. It is used to connect 1 tower on one side of a mountain to a cell tower on the other side. The small repeater picks up the signal, transfers it to a land line, that goes to either cell tower. This way you can go through a dead zone and still be connected.

Harold,

I don't know if this is similar to what you're talking about. In the Financial District here in New York, some streetlights have these small boxes hanging upside down from the horizontal arm supporting the lamp.

The box has a short antenna with a coil (like the little springy portable phone antennae on car windows) poking from its underside. The whole thing is probably half the size of the lamp attached at the end of the streetlight pole.

There's one on each light at each corner of my building. Of course I work right across the street from the Federal Reserve bank (at Chase Manhattan Bank HQ) and I wonder if these boxes are actually part of a repeater system for the F.R. police or the Chase Manhattan security guards.

My local WalMart has repeaters, I get a better signal on the cell phone inside WalMart than out!

I've yet to actually see the suckers though.

NYC folks:

The tunnels (Lincoln/Holland) also have antennae (or repeaters?) in them, not sure which carriers, so your call doesn't get dropped as you drive under the Hudson River...

CAN YOU FIND THE "STEALTH" TOWER?

TG,

I don't know, that's a tough one ...

BTW, has anyone had trouble using cell phones near I95 in the southern states like South Carolina or Georgia? Everytime I drive to Florida I have trouble using a cell phone somewhere around there.

Bill