How long to put up a cell tower?

[jlemon]

I live in Constantine, a small town in SW Lower Michigan about 5 miles from the Indiana border. Sunday we had a tornado that did some major damage including taking out a cell tower. I always had 5 full bars of 3G but now I'm bouncing back and forth between 1x and sometimes 1 bar of 3G if I'm lucky.

 

[IOWA]

Not sure, but I'm not far from you. Yeah that storm was wicked.....

Sorry I don't have an answer to your question.

But I do have a suggestion. Call sprint and explain what happened. Then tell them you heard about this airave thing that gives you signal at home. They should comp the airave and the monthly fee. It won't fix data, but voice will be good again. You can always use wifi for data.

Tapatalk. Samsung Moment. Yep.

 

[mkampy]

Airwave now available only via stores

 

[ScorpDX]

The actual physical construction of a tower can be done in a few days. Usually goes something like this...

Day 1--Clear land and prep site
Day 2--Pour concrete pad for tower base and guy wires
Day 3--Do fencing and perimeter along with building the hardware building while concrete hardens
Day 4--Get base and guy wires setup
Day 5--Crane shows up and tower is put up over several hours one section at a time
Day 6--Tower climber shows up and mounts antennas and runs the coax while a tech is wiring everything on the other end to the equipment building.
Tower online! Now, that's all based heavily on weather and wind. Most climbers won't go up if winds are 5mph+
Also, this is depending on the type of tower...there are hundreds of styles. Some are quicker/easy and some are far more complicated.

The hardest and most time consuming parts are the permits and zoning. The FAA used to be (and still likely is) anal about the requirements for lighting and locations and height and color and everything else they could think of!

FCC then comes into play and they have to approve the paperwork which is more snail mail crap to wait on.

State/County/City ordinances, building codes, permit applications, fee's, ect must all be applied for and approved as well.

 

[joseamirandavelez]

wow... all of this to repair a tower...

 

[jeremylobaugh]

When a tower needs to be reconstructed, the need for it's existence will be re-evaluated. You have lead time for whatever hardware is needed, ie: tower, platforms, huts, BTS cabinets, fencing, antennas, feedline, etc... Plus there are permits, they will most likely take bids on the job for a few days, then the CG will have to sub out most of the work. I have never seen one re-constructed in less than 30 days. If it wasn't for all of the bureaucracy, things would be shortened up a bit, but you would still be looking at a minimum of 3 weeks.

 

[ndfan4u]

I live in Constantine, a small town in SW Lower Michigan about 5 miles from the Indiana border. Sunday we had a tornado that did some major damage including taking out a cell tower. I always had 5 full bars of 3G but now I'm bouncing back and forth between 1x and sometimes 1 bar of 3G if I'm lucky.

Thank my stars I moved out of LaGrange when I did. Living in that area was like living in a third world country.