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How Cell Towers Work: Hands-On! - YouTube
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that mobile phone in your hand is a
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stunning piece of technology that's
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almost completely useless without a
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network to power it when you're at home
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or in the office that's taken care of by
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Wi-Fi but when you go out into the world
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you need a cellular network to keep you
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connected that's why you see cell towers
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all over the place these days but the
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most interesting ones are those you
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don't see I asked AT&T to take me on a
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tour of two of them one in a church
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steeple and one on top of a mountain and
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to my great surprise they said yes I'm
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Michael Fisher join me to learn about
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the network behind your phone on the mr.
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mobile tower tour Duxbury massachusetts
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home of excellent oysters beautiful
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coastlines and Shakespeare productions
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featuring familiar youtubers down the
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road from all that is the first parish
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Unitarian Church built in 1840 nothing
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seems out of the ordinary
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as you cross the parlor and pass the
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pews in the meeting house but when you
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head up into the Attic you find more
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cables than any church should need it's
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nothing nefarious though these are the
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conduits feeding the cell tower or more
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properly the cell site hidden up above
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obscured in the steeple itself to
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preserve ducks buries bucolic landscape
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we follow the cables up some narrow
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stairs and I do mean narrow the hard hat
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isn't just for looks and we come to the
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bell tower yes the Bell is real and yes
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it still works
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[Music]
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now we're pretty high above the ground
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at this point but not quite far enough
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up to be optimal for the kind of
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coverage this site needs so it's up an
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even smaller ladder to the base of the
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steeple itself this is where the magic
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happens
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magic you can hear on the audio feed
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here
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that's the sound of one of the cameras
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poorly shielded components reacting to
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the radiofrequency energy up here and
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while that might sound scary it's
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actually safe the workers who have to
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come up here to service the equipment
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are safe because they follow strict
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procedures and the people down below in
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the church are safe for two reasons the
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first is called the oil rig effect the
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antennas up on the steeple aren't
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pointed straight down but outward which
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makes sense if you think about it the
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second reason is something called the
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inverse square law sea radio frequency
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energy drops off with distance and it
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does it fast up here in the steeple I'm
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standing about ten feet from one of the
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antennas down at ground level about 50
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feet away the RF signal is sixteen times
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weaker this is one of the reasons
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carriers need to build so many cell
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sites to cover a given area the further
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you get from a tower the harder your
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phone has to work to stay connected to
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it but the same reason this entire
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church steeple had to be replaced with a
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fiberglass replica which is why you can
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see the Sun glowing through it here
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fiberglass is more transparent to radio
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waves than wood it's all about getting
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the strongest possible connection to
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your phone but the radio side is just
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part of the story the data packets that
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flip back and forth when you send a text
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message or subscribe to a YouTube
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channel well they have to traverse the
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internet and to get to it landlines are
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still usually the most efficient way so
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we follow the conduits back down the
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steeple through the church and out back
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to the equipment shelter this is
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basically a concrete Shack where the
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connection to the landline network
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happens this is what's called backhaul
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and these days it's all done with fiber
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you ever wonder what happens if the
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power goes out well that's where this
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rack of lead acid batteries come in they
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provide an uninterrupted power supply in
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the event of an outage there's also a
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diesel generator outside with enough
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fuel to power the site for about a day
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generally that's more than enough to
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last through a storm in this part of the
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country
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speaking of storms this cell-site
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doesn't worry about them much tucked
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away as it is inside that cozy church
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well I wanted to see a tower that was a
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little more rough and tumble so I woke
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up early one day and drove and drove and
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drove up to the White Mountains of New
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Hampshire specifically Mount Washington
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the highest point in the northeastern
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United States and 20th century record
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holder for highest wind speed ever
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recorded in fact as I wrote this script
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the mountain had just broken another
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record for coldest recorded temperature
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at the summit at minus 34 degrees
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Fahrenheit
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well that's why I went up there in
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August on what turned out to be a
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gorgeous day it's still a treacherous
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ride up the incline though so at 2700
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feet I traded in my rental car for more
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appropriate transportation
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it took about 45 minutes to chug the
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remaining 3,500 feet to the summit much
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of it at angles almost too steep to
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stand but I hopped off at the very peak
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of Mount Washington the weather was
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still excellent and the views were
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amazing the climate was so good during
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my visit in fact that it was hard to
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imagine the kind of violent storms I'd
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heard about until I rounded a corner and
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saw this this is not the tower I came to
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see it's a microwave transmitter for
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backhaul more on this in a second anyway
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this cover was made of fiberglass and it
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was almost totally demolished as I may
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and heard around the mountaintop I saw
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several of these things
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fiberglass and canvas alike just ripped
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wide open by the punishing weather here
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some were just plain missing now I had
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assumed that one of these huge
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structures was the AT&T site but now
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these are actually old school they're FM
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transmitters for radio stations WP K Q
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and W hom in fact the tower I came to
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see is this humble little stovepipe this
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was a pre-existing structure that AT&T
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acquired it's history stretching all the
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way back to the 60s when it was built as
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a transmitter for TV station WMTW well
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it's been here ever since
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so apparently these cable stays are
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indeed as strong as they look remember
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all the antenna equipment we saw up in
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the steeple and Duxbury well imagine all
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of that crammed into this there's not
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quite as much gear in here since it's
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just the one carrier but it's still a
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densely packed monolith of machinery the
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mast is actually only part of the site
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covering lands south of the mountain the
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northern reaches are taken care of by a
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dedicated sector built onto the site of
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the observatory that looks much more
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like the antennas you're probably used
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to seeing on towers and buildings by the
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way the clouds really do move this
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quickly up here it's pretty awesome
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following the waveguides into the yankee
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building we can see that the equipment
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shelter looks much the same as the one
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down in Duxbury but a little more
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Spartan well because it's at the top of
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a mountain this site doesn't have the
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kind of fiber backhaul to connect it to
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the landline network like Duxbury does
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instead it relies on microwave backhaul
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remember those beat-up antennas and this
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particular installation hasn't yet been
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updated to support LTE so for the moment
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this is one of the few AT&T sites left
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in the whole country that doesn't have
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it the company tells me it's planning an
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upgrade for this spring as soon as it's
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safe to work up on the mountain again at
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which point even this tower will be an
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LTE site both of the cell sites I
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visited do the same job filling up that
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signal bar on your phone but each has to
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deal with its own particular challenges
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to do that down in Duxbury keeping
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people happy meant refitting half a
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church so folks could preserve the look
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of their town instead of adding a cell
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tower up on Mount Washington aesthetics
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are secondary the primary concern is
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keeping the tower upright and
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broadcasting even as punishing weather
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pummels the site nine months out of the
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year there are a great many more
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challenges to running a network from
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capacity concerns to roaming agreements
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and maybe I'll take a closer look at
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those in a future video but even putting
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those extra hurdles aside I came away
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from my double tower tour with the
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renewed appreciation for how much
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thought and sweat goes into the networks
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that keep you connected folks I've
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wanted to climb a cell tower for 17
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years and it's something I never
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expected to be allowed to do so I want
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to thank AT&T for opening these sites to
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me and for letting me tuck the ears off
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all their engineers in the process drop
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a thumbs up if you want to see more
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videos like this and if you've got a
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cool idea for another mr. mobile field
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trip drop it in the comments I'd love to
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read it until next time thanks for
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watching and stay mobile my friends
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