Tag: base station

#365daysofbiking Radio activity

March 7th – Spinning over to Pelsall on at errand at dusk, I passed under the Old Cement Works Bridge at The Slough, and noted the radio masts there, the larger of which has always been a bit more than the average cellphone mast.

There since the days of analog mobile phones, it was the first cellphone basestation in the area and has been repeatedly upgraded as technology improved. I also carries on the same structure some microwave transceivers and what looks like maybe VHF telemetry antenna. It’s a busy mast for one lurking in a car park of an average, fairly remote trading estate.

Next to it of course, the three armed mast of a Tetra node, the UK emergency services digital network.

Antenna and masts fascinate me. And they never look better than against a dusk sky.

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February 10th – I’m quite liking the weather this week since it’s calmed down a bit. Cooler, clearer, some great evening skies. Sunset now well after 5pm, which means I’ll soon be commuting home in the light again.

In the meantime, stood silent sentry, but buzzing with unseen data, the cellphone station in Darlaston was a beautiful contrast to the black country dusk.

It seemed to be trading secrets with that beautiful crescent moon – which, as my grandfather might have said ‘is lying on it’s back and holding rain in its belly’ – so perhaps it’s not a good sign…

October 15th – A late afternoon spin around Brownhills, and my attention was snagged by the cellphone base station near the old cement works on Coppice Side. I recently featured a picture of Pye Green communications tower and noted that the microwave network was being dismantled. Whilst that’s true, Pye Green and others like it are still hubs of the telecoms network. Microwave transmission, rather than providing high bandwidth channels for live TV and suchlike like it used to, is till used for backhaul and interconnection purposes for the mobile phone network. The plethora of small drum antenna on this tower are pointing variously at Sutton Coldfield, Pye Green, Birmingham and Tameway Tower in Walsall. The shorter tower to the left is a Tetra unit providing support for emergency networks secure communications.