How does your community disguise its cell phone towers? (Springfield: leasing, live) - Northern Virginia - Virginia (VA) - City-Data Forum

normie · 03-14-2010, 01:27 PM

I've heard some cell phone towers are built to look like giant pine trees. Others have faux architectural towers built around them. Check out this one in my neck of the woods, with sort of a bavarian clock tower look.

So.... how did your community disguise its cell phone towers? Or, did they bother to disguise them at all?

car54 · 03-14-2010, 02:11 PM

The nearest on to me is not disguised. But, a family of bald eagles built their nest on it. They build huge nests of sticks and stuff...so it is an odd sight....all that wood way up there.

I can see the tower from my deck when the leaves are off the trees, and sometimes I break out the binoculars and watch the comings and goings of the eagles. I can even see the babies sticking their heads up when mama or pa gets back with dinner!

I wonder how the phone company services the stuff on the tower...because you better not mess with bald eagles!

normie · 03-14-2010, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by car54

The nearest on to me is not disguised. But, a family of bald eagles built their nest on it. They build huge nests of sticks and stuff...so it is an odd sight....all that wood way up there.

Wow, nice to read that eagles like them and use them for nesting. To my way of thinking a nest make a cell tower much more attractive, more like it's part of the environment. Maybe I'm just getting used to them, but I don't think they're all that ugly, anyway. It might look better to have one un-disguised than to have one rigged up as a faux tree. I guess I have to see what one of these faux trees looks like and see if it looks fake.

bmwguydc · 03-14-2010, 02:51 PM

The faux trees look bad, IMO. There's one in particular that I see, though not here, in Westchester County, and it's hilarious. It's set amid other conifers, but you can tell which is the one with the plastic branches, especially since it's so much taller than the other trees. It might stand out less, if it were just left without the fake tree limbs and painted to blend with its surroundings.

CAVA1990 · 03-14-2010, 03:11 PM

Apparently we don't have enough here in Mount Vernon as the cell phone service is pretty spotty. I know there's a faux tree over on the estate as it stands out on the skyline there when I'm canoeing on the Potomac. Amazing that we're only 15 miles from the world's center of power and still experience "no network coverage" from AT&T.

statecollege · 03-14-2010, 04:32 PM

A tower on the property of a county fire station on the Parkway near the intersection with Gambrill in W. Springfield is disguised as a giant flagpole. If one looks closely, the pole looks to be over-sized for its situation, but most will never notice.

statecollege · 03-14-2010, 04:38 PM

Your tower photo got me wondering if a clock tower at a relatively new shopping center just off I-95 at Lorton Rd in Lorton might not also serve a cell transmission function. It's built on a hill across the center's parking lot and very close to I-95. I always thought it was a little out of place. I'll have to check into that to satisfy my curiosity.

car54 · 03-14-2010, 09:34 PM

Speaking of cell towers, there used to be a dead spot on I-77 in Southwest Va and they approached a bluegrass picker buddy of mine iabout leasing some of his land for it.

It's pretty lucrative...they wanted about a half acre (he owns 100+) to put up the tower and a little building at the base, and 24/7 access to it. They offered him $1300 a month! My buddy could live on that down there...without having to work.

Broke his heart when they decided his next door neighbor's land was a better spot for the tower...

slduvall · 03-15-2010, 07:51 AM

In Las Vegas they disguise them as palm trees, they will plant some real ones next to it. It is pretty funny..the middle of the freakin desert, and there is a palm tree. Of course in no time the real ones die and they have to replace them.

normie · 03-15-2010, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slduvall

In Las Vegas they disguise them as palm trees, they will plant some real ones next to it. It is pretty funny..the middle of the freakin desert, and there is a palm tree. Of course in no time the real ones die and they have to replace them.

OMG a cell phone tower disguised as a palm tree????? OMG that would be one giant mutant palm tree! (Especially if they surround it by a sea of real trees half its size.) Only in Vegas...