What's topping this power pole?

On Wed, 16 Mar 2016 11:55:36 -0700, DaveC Gave us:

Could be "LEO WiFi" or... Is there an airport nearby? Could be a locale marker.

Major airport 5 miles. This isn?t directly in the landing path, kinda off to one side by a couple of miles.

I see 6 coax cables up there, I'm guessing a Cell tower, with 3 or 6 directional antenna. Must be high frequency, but I can't tell the size from the perpective of the pictures.

Cheers

Can you put multiple, directional antennas in an enclosure that small? I'd bet if it's cell, it is a single antenna for a micro-cell. But I'm not convinced it's cell. The area looks flat, no large buildings - I can't see any reason it would need a micro-cell.

'sa good guess. I see four or five separate feedlines.

It could be a compact "microcell" with four to six separate directional sector antennas, designed for lower visibility. Looks as if the actual radios are down in a sub-surface vault.

I doubt it's VHF or lower-UHF (e.g. police or fire) as stacking that many antennas for those bands in close proximity could result in all sorts of interference.

That is part of a very expensive little microcell. The ones we have around here are the same color but more or less conical.

Companies like "Concealfab" make those...

Also known as "DAS" or distributed antenna systems...

The problem with 600-700-800 MHz and similar bands is you can no longer know what it band it is by doing "antennaology", as the antennas now start to look the same...

Steve

On Wed, 16 Mar 2016 12:04:51 -0700, DaveC Gave us:

Outer marker? Naaahh... They are 75 MHz..

That's a relief, I thought I was just getting old.

Nope. Much too small an antenna. 6 coax cables means 60 degree sectors, which makes no sense for a suburban low altitude antenna. Cell user driving by would end up having to switch sectors several times. It might be DAS except that DAS antennas usually use big fat heliax coax cables, not something that looks about the size of RG-6/u. It's also not a beacon antenna, wi-fi antenna because of the high loss coax, 4.9GHz police communications, or something similar, mostly because of the 6 coax cables.

Those 6 cable also beg the question of where do they go? Following the coax down the pole, it goes into a long conduit, exits temporarily just above the power meter, and goes back into a different conduit, which disappears into the ground. So, where's the transceiver? Certainly not in the antenna, which is much too small. Certainly not buried in the concrete sidewalk with no evidence of a utility vault in the sidewalk. Even so, the coax cable loss would be too at cm and mm wave frequencies.

However, the killer is the "radome". If you look at the bottom edge carefully, you'll see that it's very thin, which makes it metal, not fiberglass. Metal covers make rather poor radomes. The paint color is also fairly common for metal covers, but not for radomes.

(Insert drum roll please). My guess is that these are RG-6/u or RG-11/u CATV coax cables running to various businesses on the street. They are terminated with a power divider or possibly an amplifier, which might explain the presence of the power meter on the pole. Although an odd place to terminate CATV cables, I guess(tm) someone did it to keep curious engineers bearing screwdrivers from taking it apart.

It's a short range cell tower common in industrial areas of Silicon Valley. Those are likely power and networking cables sticking out.

I'm not sure what the slender metal box is. Batteries?

A better question is why you didn't read the sign on the other side of the pole?

On Wed, 16 Mar 2016 19:46:24 -0700, Jeff Liebermann Gave us:

Could be a diversity array.

You guys may also have missed that it is not merely the stub on top with the coaxes going into it., but the two foot plus pair of sticks below it with the little short knobby nipple sticks under it as well.

Maybe it is modern carbon fiber shell material. If it is a radome it cannot be metal. Use some common sense.

The coaxes go into a very large conduit next to the power meter., but why a two foot section of the bundle is exposed is a bit confusing.

Maybe master cable guy Terrell will be man enough to chime in without mouthing off.

On Wed, 16 Mar 2016 11:55:36 -0700, DaveC Gave us:

How many clicked on the camel toe pic on the sidebar tagged "psych"?

I did not, but I am trying to guess what it is. I know it is NOT "pussy".

Hmm...

Very nicely done. Nothing like that in Santa Cruz yet. I have my doubts that anyone would install a 60 degree per sector antenna that small with 6 very long coax cables possibly going to a nearby building, but it's possible. The RF hazard sign is the clincher. However, what is inside the 4 boxes hanging from the pole? Telco backhaul?

On Thu, 17 Mar 2016 08:07:45 -0700, Jeff Liebermann Gave us:

Could also be non-std comms for the local transit company.

In SD are the rail line and bus line had repeaters all over the place.

It was called something or other 'mesh'.

With six coax cables and an equal number of antennas? I don't think so. However, I might be wrong about the 60 degree sectors. It could be 120 degree sectors, with two antennas per sector, one vertically polarized, the other horizontal for MIMO. Or maybe 3 different service providers sharing the same pole as in DAS.

These are what I'm used to seeing for small cell antennas: Note that they're better looking, usually side mounted, and larger. I used to live off Meridian in San Jose. Maybe I'll give it a visit and get a closer look at the antenna. I can't believe the shoddy installation.

Yeah, but they run VHF (150MHz) and UHF (460MHz) systems, which use bigger antennas.

I hate mesh networks (for wi-fi). Details on demand.

Is it a Comcast (or some other) neighborhood hotspot? There's one at the end of my street - not at the top of the pole and not so many wires but it's similar in appearance.

See if it's on the map:

Looks like you may have nailed it Griz:

Verizon wifi.

That?s the exact location.