Is there money in leasing comm tower space?

[Red Squirrel]

This rather interesting property popped up on my FB feed. It's roughly an hour from where I live.

http://www.realty-networks.ca/viewlisting.php?id=18416259&board=52

About 8 acres and has a 300' comm tower, and that's also a lot of land that could be used to build a solar farm or what not. Lots of options.

I don't even know if bank would give me the money, but kinda kicking around the idea. Could offer leased space on the tower for companies that may require such thing such as telcos, radio station etc either for broadcast or for a relay hop. Demand for that is probably rather low though, kinda a niche thing. Anyone have an idea what kind of money one would reasonably charge for something like that? I presume you'd charge based on the power draw of the base station equipment and based on the weight of the tower equipment, and height placement. Basically it would need to be profitable enough to cover the mortgage cost of the site and then some. Too bad there's no lake nearby though, as it would double as a pretty nice camping area if you build a cottage and plant trees.

I don't have a ham radio license, but I'd definitely get one if I owned a 300 foot tower. That would make one hell of an APRS igate site!

Not actually planing on buying it, but kinda fun to dream. Owning something like this would be fun and rather exotic.

 

[Murloc]

land in canada must be useless if it's so cheap.

 

[luv2liv]

wow, only 60k! that's dirt cheap!
renting the tower out to communication companies depends on demand. i used to work for Sprint. example, in big cities like Philly, a row house could rent out its roof for $1200 per month, easily. i wouldnt want to live beneath it from fear of cancer, but thats easy money with non of the hassle with bad tenants.

 

[Darwin333]

I can't imagine you could charge all that much considering how cheap the land is. For $1200 a month they would be better off just buying an acre or hell the whole thing themselves. They could sell off or rent the rest which would still be pretty much all of the property.

 

[cbrunny]

holy hell thats in the middle of butt fuck nowhere. I bet the land owner has to pay the utility company to put the tower there, just so they have someone to come visit every now and then.

 

[SKORPI0]

 

[luv2liv]

hmmm. maybe thats a good idea! charge thrill seekers $100 per ascent/descent. $200 if they want to zip line the way down using those lines that are holding the tower up.
profit!

 

[KMFJD]

I've got a friend that's got a wisp setup their antenna's on their silo tower, but the real money is in the 5 windmills that they put up on his farm

 

[Red Squirrel]

hmmm. maybe thats a good idea! charge thrill seekers $100 per ascent/descent. $200 if they want to zip line the way down using those lines that are holding the tower up.
profit!

Haha I was thinking that. Setup a zip line down one of the guy wires. Or bungee jump off the platform.

I always wanted to climb one of those towers, I bet I would regret it half way up though, that would be one hell of a work out but the view would be worth it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

wow, only 60k! that's dirt cheap!
renting the tower out to communication companies depends on demand. i used to work for Sprint. example, in big cities like Philly, a row house could rent out its roof for $1200 per month, easily. i wouldnt want to live beneath it from fear of cancer, but thats easy money with non of the hassle with bad tenants.

Wow that's much more profitable than I thought. But I guess it really depends on location/demand too, and they probably pay a premium given it's that close to where people live.

I think realistically though I could not do this as I work for a telco and it would probably be a conflict of interest. Still a fun idea to think about though.

 

[Zeze]

I worked for American Tower - industry leader in cell towers and theyleass out verticsl spaces to clients (att vzw sprint tmobi etc) equipments by 10' increments.

Their portal would show all the towers they owned in US. Id come across some towers in the literally middle of a desert on a mountain top and the only client was FBI... with huge drum antennas

Scary.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Interesting. I'd guess they were probably point to point links so the tower just acted as a hop. Was there two drums facing different directions? Though it could be in theory some kind of spy tower, point the drum at a target and it would amplify any signals that come that way.

We have a lot of sites like that up north going all the way to James Bay area for phone service, it's kinda interesting as some are so far in middle of nowhere that they run on diesel 24/7.

 

[brianmanahan]

This rather interesting property popped up on my FB feed. It's roughly an hour from where I live.

weird, for some reason i always thought you were in BC

 

[Red Squirrel]

weird, for some reason i always thought you were in BC

Nope northern Ontario. Though I think there is a few here from BC.

 

[Rifter]

Nope northern Ontario. Though I think there is a few here from BC.

There sure is, im in surrey BC, AKA the Chicago of canada at the rate shootings are happening here lately.

 

[brianmanahan]

There sure is, im in surrey BC, AKA the Chicago of canada at the rate shootings are happening here lately.

wait, mayne told me that canada doesnt have guns

 

[Rifter]

wait, mayne told me that canada doesnt have guns

I own 5, 4 rifles and a pistol. You can have guns here, just no CCW. And you need to take a government mandated 2 day course to get your license, and for Restricted firearms(pistols, AR-15's, anything else semi auto the gov deems scary and black) you need to pass a RCMP background check and phyc eval. And restricted firearms can only be fired at a government approved range. Its a pain to own guns here, but still legal and possible.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yep, and skunk season is open year round, so you can technically walk around with a gun and say you're hunting skunk. I don't know anyone who actually does that though. It was kind of a joke between me and a coworker since he was super into guns.

But yeah I hear BC is getting pretty bad with violence. Keep that shit overthere plz.

 

[Rifter]

Yep, and skunk season is open year round, so you can technically walk around with a gun and say you're hunting skunk. I don't know anyone who actually does that though. It was kind of a joke between me and a coworker since he was super into guns.

But yeah I hear BC is getting pretty bad with violence. Keep that shit overthere plz.

It's pretty bad, especially some areas of Surrey. I sleep with my 1911 in a biometric safe on my nightstand for a reason. Easy access. Although I live only a few blocks from the new city hall they just built so the cops keep the crack/meth addicts a few blocks away now, my neighbourhood was worse a few years ago. It's actually not so bad anymore. Still scary though to read about all the gang shootings in the streets, drive by shooting seem to be popular in gangs nowadays. It's crazy how little the gangs seem to care for the general public, they seem to hit innocent bystanders almost as often as their targets.

 

[sdifox]

It's pretty bad, especially some areas of Surrey. I sleep with my 1911 in a biometric safe on my nightstand for a reason. Easy access. Although I live only a few blocks from the new city hall they just built so the cops keep the crack/meth addicts a few blocks away now, my neighbourhood was worse a few years ago. It's actually not so bad anymore. Still scary though to read about all the gang shootings in the streets, drive by shooting seem to be popular in gangs nowadays. It's crazy how little the gangs seem to care for the general public, they seem to hit innocent bystanders almost as often as their targets.

Rcmp would like to have a word with you.

 

[Rifter]

Rcmp would like to have a word with you.

Well they know where to find me, they run a CPIC check on me daily due to my Restricted firearms license.