Anyone have cell tower lease on their property?

[firefighter ontheside]

My good friend is now the owner of his family farm which is in the middle of a very urban area and even borders with a big shopping mall.  He has two cell towers on his land.  One of them is made to look like a windmill so it is not so ugly on his farm.  I do not know what he makes on them, but I believe it to be a large sum.  We looked into it out where we live, because we had poor signal about 20 years ago.  One of the companies acted interested, but never followed thru.  Now the signal is much better at our house and so someone must have gotten a tower instead of us.

[Resonator]

The really tall towers are most likely TV and radio broadcast towers. And could very well be "public" towers, where multiple companies (including cell carriers) can pay for space to put their antennas. Also the FCC requires that tall towers along with having a red light, must be painted in sections alternating red (or orange) and white to make them highly visible to aircraft.

FM radio transmitters are often built on a hill, mountain, or tall building, to gain the most elevation and "line of sight" (unobstructed) broadcast range. They can also point the transmitters towards the populated area they want to reach, giving the strongest signal. The bigger the transmitter in 1000's of watts, the more area they can cover.

[Tom King]

Here's one just like the one I'm talking about that is between 5 and 6 miles in a direct line away.  It's the red light.  We didn't want one of these 3/4 mile from the house.  This was the night of the planet conjunction.



 

[Old saw fixer]

Like @Tom King , I had a bite to have a cell tower on our land.  When I learned of the strobe on top, I let it go.  I like my mostly natural surroundings without a light show...

[Chuck White]

I have two towers within sight of my house, out the front door 1+ miles is an AT&T tower, and out the back door about 2 miles is a Verizon tower.

The AT&T tower has a light on top and is just over 200 feet high, the Verizon tower doesn't have a light, and is 190 feet high.

[Jim_Rogers]

I did a portable sawing job one time for a woodworker. He worked for a cell phone company that rented space in church steeples in the center of towns. These towns were low in a valley or along a river and didn't get good cell connections.
Between the roof of the church and the section of the steeple where the bells are can be several "floors/rooms". This is where they set up the cell tower equipment. 
His job was to create a "chase" for the wiring that had to come down from the cell station through the church to the basement where it went out to the street for power or whatever. And these wooden chase ways had to look like they had always been there. He had to match the type of wood, grain and color of stain.
He said he had to work closely with the priest or minister to get things right.
And he mentioned that sometimes there are more spaces in the steeple for a second company to have another second cell station(sender/receiver).
So, the church could rent out two locations in their steeple.

We've all seen them do this with water towers.

Jim Rogers

[hedgerow]

In my area America Tower is the big dog in the cell phone tower business. We have had one on one of our farms for well over thirty years. It sits back in the corner of that farm. Its just under the 200 foot so no light. Its on a hill just mile and half off I-80. Three major carries use this one. Currently we are getting three grand a month. We just signed another thirty years lease a few years ago with a nice bonus and a nice raise every year. Over the years I have never had any issues with the couple of company's that has had the lease. It sold a couple times until America Tower bought the lease and I had zero problems with them. I haven't seen any big towers go up in my area for years just the small ones in the road right of ways.  

[Chuck White]

My good friend is now the owner of his family farm which is in the middle of a very urban area and even borders with a big shopping mall.  He has two cell towers on his land.  One of them is made to look like a windmill so it is not so ugly on his farm.  I do not know what he makes on them, but I believe it to be a large sum.  We looked into it out where we live, because we had poor signal about 20 years ago.  One of the companies acted interested, but never followed thru.  Now the signal is much better at our house and so someone must have gotten a tower instead of us.

There's one here in the Adirondacks town of Star Lake, NY that has a cell tower with limbs on it and painted to look like a "pine tree".
It blends in with the other trees pretty well, I had been by it a few times before I noticed it!

[firefighter ontheside]

I saw one of those in California.  It looked just like a redwood tree.  Fooled me for a minute, but the green of the leaves just didn't seem right.

[gspren]

  We had one on the farm that  we sold about 9 years ago and tower was there for about 12 years before we sold. The tower company contacted us and a few others in the area and after getting tentative approvals from 3 possible property owners they set up a truck with a "boom" antena at each site and had a roving crew check reception in the area, we got the contract. It was for 50 years with a % increase every 5 years. When I sold the farm the tower lease increased the farm value quite a bit. They marked out a 100' x 100' square plus short access road from an existing farm road and I was allowed to take out any trees I wanted with no regard to stumps so I had a guy bring in a portable sawmill (Woodmizer) and made lots of oak 1x and 2x lumber just because. I also had a good firewood supply for a couple years. No regret. Lease allowed tower up to 300' tall but they only went 250'

[Ljohnsaw]

Right in the middle of a dense suburb of Sacramento, a very dense housing development.

 

[Ianab]

Still a bit of eyesore, even with it's tree camo job.  :-\

The newer, smaller, "fill in the gaps" towers are really no more obnoxious than a street light pole, so they don't bother trying to hide them. There are more of them, but they don't stick out. 

[peakbagger]

They make lots of varieties of cell phone towers hidden to look like other things Cell Trees, Inc. (celltreesinc.com) The term "frankenpine" is sometimes used by people opposed to cell towers in the Northeast (towers are normally disguised as western pines). I see several of them in NH heading up and down I93 and I89. They are not intended to be exact replicas, just enough that unless someone is looking for a tower in the background, they wont focus on the tower and it blends in. When cell companies are looking for lease sites they figure out the least initial and long term cost for the tower, disguises cost extra money to install and also in the long term to maintain the antennas, they also have higher wind loading and potential for icing so the structure needs to be beefier. If there is local planning and zoning, cell towers usually have tough time getting permitted, so the tower agent responsible for permitting will usually keep things like tower heights and camouflage in their back pocket as negotiating points, but ultimately, they are in business to spend the least dollars to supply a given signal. 


With respect to tower lighting, there are FAA lighting requirements that have to be met for towers that change depending on how close to an airport they are. Two hundred feet is usually the cut off. An owner can include the requirement that a potential tower will not require lighting but that means they may lose out to neighbor that does not have that requirement. I expect many folks with towers on their property will learn to ignore the lights when they are cashing their monthly checks of $1000 to $3000 a month.  

[MoHardWood]

I've got one in ab urban part of southern california. Installed 20 years ago. Initially it was $5800/month with a 3% annual increase. About 5 years ago I started to get an annual call asking if I will sign a new deal at a lower price. If I don't sign they threaten to remove the tower. Was a little worried the first year but decided to roll the dice as it isn't the easiest thing to get permitted. Just got a check for just under a $100k after turning down a new contract. 
If you can get one installed jump at it. Make sure there is an annual increase perpetuity. Enjoy cashing the checks.

[peakbagger]

Thanks, after an initial visit, I am waiting for the results of a signal analysis by the agent's firm based on possible locations. It is pretty rugged terrain in the area. Its in a rural area with a major regional highway running through an area with most of the land locked out from having cell towers. There is definitely a dead zone along the highway. 

The biggest challenge is getting an idea on what the local rates are, lease rates are not public record and the tower owners tend not return calls as they are always getting bothered by firms trying to buy out their leases. 

[tawilson]

T-Mobile was on my property doing a survey yesterday. He said we had poor service, which I already knew. He was parked next to the old family windmill so I offered it to him as a joke. He took it serious and said maybe. It is next to the powerlines.

[peakbagger]

When cell pnones were new, it was a major hassle in Vermont to license towers. Lots of folks had old windmill towers with dead turbines on them that had been built when wind was "hot". I see more than a few with cell antennas on them. 

In my town, someone bought an dol church with grand plans to renovate it. The prior congregation had gotten rid of it as it needed a lot of work. The new owner got some cell antennas located in the bell tower and I expect that is only upgrade that has been done. Its been 15 or 20 years and it just looks worse every year, but my guess is the owner is just milking it for lease payments. 

[peakbagger]

It looks like I am moving on to the next step. 

Finding firms to represent me for a potential lease is proving to be challenge, there seems to be lots of internet "snake oil" salesmen out there, they promise they are experts and will give all sort of legal advice but look at the fine print and they very clearly state they are not lawyers so they are not liable for anything they say.  One firm claims they are lawyers but when I contacted them via email it is obvious they just threw me on an e-mail list that sends me crap daily on how to get a cell phone tower on my property by hiring their service for $1,999. The joke is at least in my mountainous territory, the cell companies have to actively look for lots that have the right location and elevation first and then pick through the limited options. Listing a site if its not good for signal is not going to draw any interest. All these firms want a copy of the lease offer before they will talk details on their services, my guess is the lease offers go into a database that they can sell to the highest bidder. 

I tried a referral through the state bar association, I got a name, but he hasn't called back yet. 

[hedgerow]

Peakbagger.  Years ago when we first got our tower we used the lawyer that we had used in the past for buying farm. I think he did well for us. A few years back when the lease was redone we looked at some of those services and I couldn't see were they could do us any good and charged  a big service fee. Our tower is in a very good location for them and we had no problem getting the terms we wanted for the new contract. Most folks in the area will tell you what they are getting for rent. Seems like around this area America Tower has most of the cell phone towers now days. I have had zero issues with those folks. The guys that do the up keep always close the gate to the pasture. If the drive needs rock one call and its taken care of.  The money is always in our bank account on the fifteen of the month. I sure hope you end up with one.  

[Larry]

When I worked for AT&T I bought hundreds of cable and equipment easements.  Even bought a couple of cell sites.  The contract was standard and had been used for years.  Their were always a few that wanted their attorney to review it before signing.  Normally the attorney would want to change a word or two that didn't amount to anything which I always did.  I think the only reason was to justify a big bill to their client. 

Their often was negotiation on the price, but the ones with a attorney never got any more than they would have without an attorney.

Not sure how other companies work, but AT&T was always most honest with leases.