One Big Tower to Replace Two Blown-over Towers in Massachusetts

April 16, 2014

Something good may come out of the incident late last month where winds blew over two communications towers on Florida Mountain overlooking North Adams, Mass. The owner of the towers, North Adams Tower Company, is now taking bids to replace the 160-foot cell tower and the 150-foot FM broadcast tower with a single 195-foot tower.

Corydon Thurston, owner of North Adams Tower Company, told AGL Link, that there is no real need for two towers and consolidating them will end up saving his company money in the long run.

“One tower was an 18-inch face-guyed structure originally built to support a radio station. It was not very beefy. A second tower was built later to support the cellular antennas. We have a chance to build a bigger, better facility. One tower will be less expensive than two and have less visual impact. It will be an enhancement,” he said.

The new tower will carry AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint; two FM broadcast stations, one commercial and one public; an FM low-power translator; and several public safety antennas. Thurston plans to have the new tower erected and all the tenants in place by November 1.

“That’s an aggressive timeline, but I am pretty comfortable that we can make it happen,” he said.

Meanwhile, work continued in the effort to restore cellular communications to Adams County, Mass., which is currently being served by several cells one wheels (COWs). Luckily, the towers did not land on the radio shacks when they fell so the radio equipment was unscathed.

Verizon Wireless began building a 100-foot temporary monopole, which is scheduled to be finished in a month. The temporary tower will also support gear from AT&T and Sprint. All the broadcast antenna facilities are back up on the air on temporary structures, which will be upgraded to a 60-foot utility tower that is being secured for the radio station’s antennas.

Thurston is meeting with the carriers to design of the new tower and make sure it has enough space available for their future growth.

“It doesn’t happen very often that weather knocks down a tower, but nevertheless we are going to build a new tower that can handle above and beyond the equipment that we are going to put on it,” Thurston said. “It will be up to today’s standards, and if we can over design it, we will.”

When the towers blew over on March 29 just before midnight, Adams County was experiencing rains and steady 50-mph winds. The cause of the incident may have been a sudden shift of the winds to an abnormal angle, Thurston said. North Adams Tower Company owns and manages only one tower site.