American Tower Corporation tower (Longwood, FL)

USA / Florida / Longwood / Longwood, FL
Old AT&T Long Lines Microwave Tower
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   28°42'50"N   81°20'34"W

Comments

  • Apparently, this tower is still in use (I often see utility trucks parked in front of it), but I don't know how long it will remain, because businesses have tried to buy the land to knock down the tower and build stores before.
  • The tower won't come down any time in the distant future. Sprint/Nextel (currently Nextel antennas only), Verizon Wireless, Metro PCS, and XM Satellite Radio (terrestrial signal booster for it's satellite radio signal) has facilities at this site. To see details about this tower site visit the following page: http://www.americantower.com/OASISPublic/SitePublicPage/SiteBrochure.asp?lngSiteID=840&lngTowerID=-1&txtCaption=Brochure note: the tower elevation drawing appears to be wrong as it shows the old ATT&T microwave antennas (pre 1999) and the 2000/2001 additions (Nextel, Verizon Wireless, and the XM Satellite Radio terrestrial booster) all on one tower at the same time which is not true as the ATT&T microwave antenna was the first week in August 2000 and the Nextel antenna was constructed the last week of that month. The Verizon Wireless antennas were added the next month after that and the XM satellite radio terrestrial booster antenna was added in late 2001 or early 2002. note 2: one of the pictures from the photo gallery show a broken piece of Coax cable (from either June 1999 when the tower was bought by ATC or in early July 2000 when the ATC signage was added to that site) at the level where the XM Satellite radio terrestrial booster antenna was an UHF radio repeater at 451.575 (I saw this in an one of those old Police Call frequency directory books that are not published anymore) for Bell System (pre 84 breakup) or AT&T (post 84 breakup)in Longwood. Sorry if this sounds confusing, I threw out that Police Call book a couple of years ago too when the scanner frequency information from the internet (like RadioReference.com) was more reliable than the book.
  • They can't just tear it down. What people don't know is that it sits on top of an underground bunker. The tower is Nuclear Blast proof. L-4 Coaxial System and associated Cold War Communications site. The horns are gone. Just drive up there and just look at it. It's special... It sits on a big hill, surrounded by lakes and another station a few hundred yards down... ALL connected underground. It's got a 20,000 gallon fuel storage tank, it's 3 stories deep... and that tower is made to never come down. Not even a blast.. It's also part of the old AUTOVON & ECHO FOX network. If you don't know what that means... you'd better go look it up. Let me help - here's an old map from 1966 - http://www.coldwarcomms.org/Maps/MW6610E.jpg Those workers you see look after it.
This article was last modified 17 years ago