Is it just my imagination overfed by too many hours logged on here? Bear with me here: I am inviting TBY2K Forum members to disabuse me of the tentative conclusions to which my excited state of millenial paranoia is driving me.

I started noticing these probable "cell-phone relay towers" this summer, when the first one went up at the intersection of Hwy 26 and Murray Rd. west of the Portland, Oregon metro area. Hwy 26 aka the Sunset Hwy is THE major arterial feeding in and out of downtown Portland to the west: the route everyone takes, e.g., to hit the beach at Tillamook, Seaside or Astoria, on the weekends. Portland's West Hills encircle the city to the west, and excepting Hwy 26, they limit the routes of entry to a few sideroads. A few weeks later, another one appeared, also on a major Hwy (Hwy 6) which merges with Hwy 26 about 30 miles west of Portland.

These "cell-phone towers" are I am ready to admit, on long-time phone company installations; and it is no mystery maybe that they should be each located within spittin' -- or shootin' --distance of major intersections with Hwy. 26. But it doesn't help the paranoid mentality that they are extrarodinarily substantial installations of concrete and steel: giant almost tubular towers as much as 4' around at the base and tapering up to two or three triangular array of antennae at the top. These triangular array have such a configuration that they appear ready to accept just a few sheets of concrete -- perhaps -- in order to make the array into a bulletproof crow's nest strategically situated to control traffic at these interchanges.

Okay. I argued myself out of this lunacy over the last few months, after close-up examinations that showed these to be owned by some phone company and sited with existing antennae and phone systems. It made no difference that they had such intimdating locations, construction, and even little submarine-style metal-runged ladders built into the sides.

But today!!!! Sheesh. I was driving up Hwy 217: another arterial N/S feeder that links with E/W 26 just west of Portland. I looked up, and right alongside the highway -- in the SE corner of this major interchange -- a staggering replication of the same "cell-phone tower" where -- near as I can tell -- there had never been an antenna of any sort in place. I steered the vehicle back onto the highway, already dismissing the phantasms of martial law, reoriented myself and looked up again. THIS TIME! another tower within 100 yards easy of the first one, on a southwesterly parcel of this same major interchange! HUH? Why so? Identical installations [the very term shows my bias] within a stone's throw of each other? For competing cell companies maybe? But then why were they both within a mile plus of the 26/Murray Rd. interchange just west of here? Three cell phone companies all using different towers of identical construction maybe?

I am wtill waiting to see one of these spring up in any isolated or at least "off-road" location. It hasn't happened yet. Is the cell-phone business limited to serving customers caught in rush-hour traffic?

Anyway, where-else but here can one raise such concerns and be oh so gently disabused of one's folliesby the regulars. I have no web-site and no photos -- thank God -- but maybe I can get some intelligent feedback from the forum. And perhaps Ashton & Leska, Spidey, or anyone else who may circulate around Portland can swing by and take a look for me. TNX.

-- SH (squirrel@hunter.com), October 28, 1999

Answers

Call your hunch an intuition. I'm forecasting a 5+ (but less than 7) event with Interstate traffic control for at least the month of January but not extending past February.

Never forget, the Interstate Highway System is a MILITARY capable road, and it was built specifically as a Defence measure in the 1950's. The word defence appears in the title of the Act establishing it.

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), October 28, 1999.

SH

Having just come out of a contract with a wireless carrier, I know a touch about cell phone towers. One thing they're not are guard towers. They are along the major highways between cities because that will allow yuppies to use their phones when they travel. The antenas will not support anything made of concrete. You are right. Paranoia has got the best of you. Thnks not another thought of it and move on to the next question.

And my former employers aren't ready either.

Keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.not), October 28, 1999.

They are a blight on our landscape, to say the least, brother squirrel. I see them, however, as rude cufflinks on our imperial shirtsleeve, and imagine them, in my lesser moments, raping with lupine ambition my tonsured neocortex. And they're built to last: take a GMC 'twofer' with a big chain to tear one down, and that might not even do it. A permanent feature of our National Security Steak? Totems of technoslavery, yes, but everytime I chug next to some yupster with a cellphone mashed to her mastoid, I think of puppies stuffed in microwave ovens set on 'low.' Bake those Betz cells, baby! For a hoot, do a Google search on 'Smedley Butler,' and read what the former Commanding General of the USMC had to say about war, and interventionism. It'll cheer you right up.

-- Spidey (in@jam.RF), October 28, 1999.

Perhaps I can shed a bit of light concerning the massive quantity of cell towers. I work for an engineering firm in the midwest which has a divison devoted to cellular tower surveys and design. We have surveyed/designed hundreds in the Ohio,Indiana,Illinois,Michigan area. The reason for the massive structure size at the base (4 feet diameter)is for wind and structural loads. A 4' by 1 foot wide antennae 180 feet up produces a lot of torque in a 50 mph wind, which is not uncommon. These things are designed not to come down in a snow or ice storm. Secondly, there are many players in the cell game. Each company approaches a land owner and typically leases an access easement and small patch of ground on which to construct the tower. They occasionally share towers. Lots of companys=lots of towers. Thirdly, the range of the towers, especially of the SPRINT PCS and NEXTEL networks, is limited. Tall trees and buildings have an effect on the coverage areas which a tower is constructed. With some, the range is as small as a mile or 2 radius. This requires a dense pattern of cell tower locations in a city. Sprint has 600 sites in the Chicago area alone. In Chicago, many buildings have cell antennae bracketed to the parapet walls or elevator housings on top of the building. Finally, look at the coverage areas. They typically fill up a city and locate along interstate and major highway routes between major cities. For example, on I65 between Chicago and Indianapolis, our NEXTEL phones work great along the interstate driving through the rural area. Get a few miles away from the interstate and they're dead as a hammer. In short, they put the towers where the cars are.

Hope this eases your concern.

-- trafficjam (judgementday@ahead.soon), October 28, 1999.

Gracias. I've got enough contingent yet legitimized anxieties to deal with, without generating my own. Many thanks.

-- SH (squirrel@hunter.com), October 28, 1999.

Only on this forum would we see speculation that cell phone towers will be used as guard posts for martial law or y2k roadblocks.

60 days...... Got prozac ?

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), October 28, 1999.

Fry braincells? With handheld 900Mhz phones. Wake up. The whole reserch that was suposedly(sp) support that was a hoax and consequently the grant money was rewoked.

There is NO scientific evidence for that. Just another urban myth.

-- Rickjohn (rickjohn1@yahoo.com), October 28, 1999.

EEEEsh! Check out the photograph & info-mercial that Greenspun's program attached to the bottom of THIS thread. ARBEIT MACHT FREI!

-- mrunderhill (prancing@pony.com), October 28, 1999.

You're lucky those towers look as they do. In Cary, NC, where all the shopping centers are a tasteful beige and hunter green, there are cell phone towers designed as pine trees! Ha! They bear as much resemblance to a pine tree as a pink flamingo does to a real one. They're far more offensive than the undisguised variety.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), October 28, 1999.

What a great thread SH---I've seen those things and hadn't gotten around to getting paranoid about em--but they were definitly on my list!! No kidding----I admire your effor to tease out those places of paranoia and talk about them---I never know when legit worry crosses over for me and when or how to get to the truth---. hmmmm any other ideas out there?

-- John Q (Whynot@examineourfears.com), October 28, 1999.

Squirrel! You and me... Naw, prolly not anything to concern yourself about but please, don't give them ideas... The darn things won't support concrete structures but they sure will support a catwalk half way up their sides. Could be installed in a day and there you have it a great platform for a guard tower. Not that there is much likely hood of them being used that way... Honestly, they would never use them that way.

Squirrel, This is not intended to make you worry. It is just me rambling on. No they are not intended to be guard towers, yet. Let us hope the idea dies here.

-- (...@.......), October 28, 1999.

1) I haven't seen many new towers, but all our "Interstate Highways" are on O'ahu. Yes, Hawaii has "Interstates"...like we are going to drive out of state...

2) We have one of the new "pine tree" towers installed on the North side of the island...like they couldn't have put up something tropical?

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), October 28, 1999.

Rickjohn: I concede the force of your point.

-- Spidey (in@jam.impressed), October 29, 1999.