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UER Forum > US: Four Corners > Local AT&T Long Lines Facility (Viewed 2319 times)
NMPatriot 


Location: Las Cruces, New Mexico
Gender: Male
Total Likes: 28 likes




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Local AT&T Long Lines Facility
< on 5/19/2019 2:00 AM >
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Posted on Forum: UER Forum
I realized about 1PM today that it was only about 75 degrees and figured today was about a good of a day as any to go make a trip out into the mountains. I’ve been wanting to visit this AT&T Long Lines Auxiliary Station (Repeater) Site since I moved to town, so I packed up my camera, hiking boots, water bottles and all of my gear and headed out.

I fully expected to be forced to park at the side of the interstate because the gates are almost always locked up tight, but that wasn’t the case. Not only wasn’t it locked, it was wide open. I’ve never been able to drive up right to the RF boundary fencing around a commercial / government tower site before, but I did today and was semi-glad that I did. My parking spot completely obscured my car from anyone going by on the interstate.

Over the top of the building in the photo below you can see another flat topped tower in the distance which is an another AT&T Long Lines Aux Station. Normally they’re 25-35 miles apart, but they needed two within 1.5 miles of each other in this case because of the orientation of the pass through the mountains.



The tower site is (currently) unused and now owned by American Tower Co. The original KS-15676 horn antennas and all of the RF hardline have been removed from the tower so it’s now just a hulking steel tower with nothing on it. In their time Bell Systems, AT&T and the Federal Government took the security of these sites pretty seriously.







These sites are almost always impossible to get into. They’re thick solid concrete with zero windows. The only openings in the building are the heavy steel entry door, a 3’x3’ rubber and steel cable gland where the RF hardlines pass through the wall and the various vents / exhaust pipes which contain blast valves to close them in the event of a sudden overpressure (bomb).

I spent a good two hours just hanging out, shooting random pics and playing with exposure bracketing for HDR. I hiked around, took photos from the peaks of nearby hills and generally had fun. It was obvious that the facility no longer had power just based on the condition of the power boxes outside. This place would require new electric runs from the nearby poles if it were ever to be used again.



I could clearly see that the cable gland where all of the RF hardline passed through the outside wall was missing and I could have quite easily crawled my way into the building if I had something to throw over the barbed wire and climb the fence. Honestly, I was feeling pretty lazy today and wasn’t really up for jumping fences and low-crawling into a dark building with no windows which may be inhabited by animals.

For the hell of it as I was packing up to leave I grabbed the door handle and gave it a turn. Sho’ nuff.. the damned door was unlocked. It looks like someone had bashed on this SFIC door lock so hard with something like a sledgehammer they’d actually managed to free the lock housing from the door. The lock is now literally just sitting in a hole in the door doing nothing. From a distance you just couldn’t tell and I’m hoping that most people in the future just assume the place is locked up tight.



That’s all for right now. I’m planning on making a trip back tomorrow afternoon and will explore the building itself. All I had on me today was one pocket-sized flash light and figured it would be safer to return when properly equipped. I also didn’t have my neckstrap on my camera today and would prefer to be able to have my hands free when entering a place for the first time. I’ll post more after I go back.

[All photos taken with a Canon EOS Rebel T5 /w 24mm f/2.8 STM Lens]

-NMPatriot (Ric)



[last edit 5/19/2019 2:28 AM by NMPatriot - edited 2 times]

NMPatriot 


Location: Las Cruces, New Mexico
Gender: Male
Total Likes: 28 likes




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Re: Local AT&T Long Lines Facility
< Reply # 1 on 5/19/2019 2:42 AM >
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A bit of backstory for those interested in these sites that haven't seen them before. "AT&T Long Lines" was a group of people at AT&T/Bell Systems that developed and installed microwave transmission and relay towers cross country. The first facilities were operational by 1951 and carried hundreds of voice (telephone) and television signals cross-country. For the 1950's this was advanced technology and it provided much more reliable and clearer long distance telephone service than coaxial cross-country circuits that had been previously in service.

From an AT&T "Telephone Skyway" brochure, 1951:



To put things in perspective in regards to size, the face of each of the antennas at the top of the tower pictured above is 10 feet square.


Quite obviously there was no OSHA in the 50's.... the construction worker in this photo is showing off for the camera. He's standing on the top surface of one of the horn antennas even though there's steel decking available just behind the antenna. No fear of heights there!



Edited to add: Oops, guess I should have searched before posting backstory. There's already tons of AT&T LL related posts.



[last edit 5/19/2019 3:04 AM by NMPatriot - edited 1 times]

Novemberico 


Total Likes: 2 likes


Baby murder

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Re: Local AT&T Long Lines Facility
< Reply # 2 on 10/20/2019 6:57 AM >
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nice, have you been to the telephone museum in abq?




GARR1S0N 


Location: Watervliet, NY
Gender: Male
Total Likes: 50 likes


Screw Rona

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Re: Local AT&T Long Lines Facility
< Reply # 3 on 11/20/2019 4:34 AM >
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Posted on Forum: UER Forum
As a soon-to-be ANS Tower Technician, it concerns me that this was left wide open lol. We have a Verizon site over here that controls the whole grid for the area. I was told about it in one of my classes. I wasn't told where it was, I was just told it was near Troy, NY. But ya these sites aren't kidding. Nice Pictures though.




I'll be fuckin' around in the mills
NMPatriot 


Location: Las Cruces, New Mexico
Gender: Male
Total Likes: 28 likes




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Re: Local AT&T Long Lines Facility
< Reply # 4 on 11/30/2019 10:13 PM >
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Posted on Forum: UER Forum
Posted by G10 Photography
As a soon-to-be ANS Tower Technician, it concerns me that this was left wide open lol. We have a Verizon site over here that controls the whole grid for the area. I was told about it in one of my classes. I wasn't told where it was, I was just told it was near Troy, NY. But ya these sites aren't kidding. Nice Pictures though.


I wouldn't say this site was 'left open'. It had an SFIC deadbolt lock on the door at one time, but a previous 'visitor' decided they didn't like it keeping the door secured apparently. Looks like someone took a duckbill lock puller to it (which is what we used to do on the fire department to gain access to a deadbolt secured door) and literally tore the whole lock through both surfaces (interior and exterior skin) of the steel door.

In addition to the door being FUBAR'ed, the cable glands, vent gratings / louvers, etc were all torn from the building so it's got multiple massive openings. The only 'fortunate' thing is that it's very obvious that the site has never been used for anything after the AT&T LL equipment was stripped out. It would be a lot worse of a situation if this transmitter hut had actual active equipment in it.

Venturing up to sites like this, taking pics and exploring is all kosher with me, but outright destroying property and FUBAR'ing a door so it can't be re-secured, etc is just vandalism that I'd like to kick someone's #$%^ in for.





UER Forum > US: Four Corners > Local AT&T Long Lines Facility (Viewed 2319 times)


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