The Secret Radio Site You’re Not Meant To See! 

In the late 80's-early 90's in San Diego, CA, USA siting at churches was very difficult because they had boards to deal with and such. We finally found a church where the minister was a HAM and so were many of the congregation. We built them a lovely new steeple a couple of hundred feet tall with all of the antennas hidden behind fiberglass panels. They were also getting $3500 a month in rent. They let us use a very large closet to put the site in (Motorola LD8 AMPS). They did us a huge favor by hinting to other churches about how they scored a new steeple and how much rent they were getting. Churches started calling us to ask us to put in sites.

I love how so many things are genuinely hidden in plain sight these days - there must be so much more out there..

Looks like three are also co-locating with EE's antennas here. If you had a wedding here, The reception would be Excellent.

Death Tower subliminal flash was worthy as something from an episode of Father Ted 😅

'ckinell that WAS dramatic, specially on the surround system! I loved the "death tower" splice when saying they were generally accepted, nice touch!

Your chosen a nice section of ecclesiastical organ and bell music 🎵🎶🎵🎶

I saw it. Death tower. Nice. If i ever start a band i'm goig to call it death tower and play heavey metal

I once integrated a 5g site at a church where the base of the steeple had the radios and the cross was the 3 antenna; alpha, beta and gamma.

Yes, more covert/disguised antenna sites please.

A church close to me had hidden mobile phone panel antennas, fitted to the bell tower, in around 2000. The local tinfoil hatters weren't amused. 🙄

There is a church I used to drive by in the US that had a big ground based antenna disguised as a flagpole. It stood out to me because it was a constant thickness all the way up (a perfect cylinder, quite thick) and then I noticed the wires at the base, and nearby telcom box.

Yes please to more videos like this. They are very interesting and help identify antennas on other buildings close to where I live.

One day I will dig out my 1980s brochures about huge antennae that were buried under the ground in EMP protected trenches. After a nuclear holocaust they would rise up to transmit the bunker's signals to other bunker's around the world. I expect the antennas are probably still buried in protected trenches,ready , waiting or rusting neglected ? Racal was a big player.

Ecclesiastical architecture and radio antennae.... two of my great interests coming together. Lovely to see this - and yes, more of these please.

I seem to recall T-Mobile and Orange installing aerials inside roadside price signs on Shell fuel stations, and replacing solid clock faces in church towers with GRP faces so that aerials could be hidden in the towers directly behind them. The original faces were stored for refitting once the tower was no longer required for transmission.

As a planner myself, these cases on balancing critical infrastructure and conservation of surrounding areas are often some of the trickiest. It seems to me that telecoms companies have much more leeway in permitted development rights nowadays though!

That creepy dracula organ in the intro is way too loud for 5am. What a wake up, holy fuckin hell. The phantom of the radio, is here, inside my CRANIUM! AAAARGHHH 73s from a VK2 who is now very awake. Cheers haha. Thank you for another great upload mate.

Love the added "tower death" blip!!! Had to go back and see it again!!

Good use for a thoroughly redundant building. Oah look! They installed lightning protection on the Church!

Nice one! And again... beautifully filmed!

That audio was superb!

My church on the outskirts of Leeds has an Airwave antenna in our tower. We don't have any commercial systems but the Airwave setup is a way of serving the community in a way, and also gives us some much needed income.

The shot of the stone at the end is gorgeous.

Every day is a school day with your videos.

Haha Death Tower, classic! Now I'll need to look at every building I pass to see what antennas are visible! Great video Lewis.

I am surprised they allowed the panel antennas.... but as you said, not visible from the ground easily, and easily removed later if needed

I bet the Vicar of Dibley could shed some light on this! 😃

In Ireland, many Churches have Antron-99 CB antennas mounted outside.. Some are active during Mass on Sundays or during funerals. TX is usually FM.

Nice use of the music. It's great that churches are being used like this. I'd love to see more like this.

Nice to see the Stamford and the Griffin pubs just behind St. Mary's in your drone shots. I use to sneak into those pubs , under-age, when I was the 6th form of Alty Grammar in the 1960s. Nice to see them, nothing much changed, and a long way from Sydney where I live now!

Vodafone going through its goth era rn 💀

Would rather see a tower than an aerial on the side of a church. Instal it on top by all means but not on the side.

Orange launched as 2G (PCN). It never had an analogue network.

I recently got involved on a voluntary basis with upgrading the heating system in a CofE church. There are two administrations in churches. There are diocese which are like counties and each church is in a diocese headed by a bishop who in turn is headed by the archbishop. These guys administrate the spiritual side of the church and appoint vicars etc. But there is a separate administration of deacons with slightly different areas. Each church is within a deaconary and these guys look after the infrastructure. Archdeacons are like architects / planning officials. To make a change to a building involves a 'faculty' which is in effect a planning permission proposal that must be approved by the archdeacon. These will be the people the telecoms guys will talk to for antennae.

Yes please more videos like this

I worked for Orange in the 90's before site share was a big thing and planning was difficult so they were innovative using windows, flag poles, lampposts, "trees", leaky feeders, antennas inside petrol station signs, pico cells and probably more.....

hey i realy like your videos, especially the meshtastic onec, one thing i would love to see is maybe some home build meshtastic antennas, but it might be a secound channel video...

Reminds me of the Statue of Jesus in Świebodzin (taller than the one in Rio) which, in addition to serving as platform for radio, several mobile network carriers, a local ISP, ALSO provides wireless monitoring for the local parish (for what purpose, I have no idea; barring a motorway nearby, it's bumf*ck nowhere). All hidden away behind the veneer of... a huge golden crown :) The Lord truly does provide!

I think it is safe to say that without these antenna permits, many more churches, chapels and similar organisations would have closed 20 years ago. They would certainly be in considerably worse repair.

You are using your mini3 quite well. Panning from up to down during altitude change looks good. My mini2 is limited in looking up, the only thing I miss.

Nice one. There's another advantage to using a church. The idiots that go around vandalising antenna sites probably wouldn't burn down a church.

Those giant antennas (yes it's antennas not antennae, that's for butterflies etc 😊😊) on the side of the church are hideous.

Here in Melbourne Australia there are many churches with hidden or otherwise antennas, but only Anglican Churches as Roman Catholics don't need the money. I saw a castle in Dublin has a brick vinyl wrap on their panels to match the castle brickwork for very effective blending in.

It's amazing how many people complain about the potential health risk of mobile phone towers, yet the same people likely has a mobile phone in their pocket or handbag.

Unlike Advertising, where it's banned in the UK I got the "Death Tower"

There was a local church which was located on a spot one of the cellular providers after an engineering study determined they needed a cell-site in the immediate vicinity. The cell company built the church a new sign, this one about 75' (22 m) tall. They put a fiberglass shroud around the top with the church emblems, disguising the cellular antennas. Plus they paid the church a nice monthly rental fee. The pastor said, since we were in something of a recession, the collection plates were coming up a little thinner at the time, so the rent money helped. It was in a nicer neighborhood, not real affluent, but let's say upper middle class, so some of the neighbors hated it and complained to the church and City Hall. You also had the tin foil hat types coming out in fear of the radiation. The City did eventually pass an ordinance restricting cellular and some commercial towers to areas zoned commercial or industrial. They didn't even try to restrict amateur or CB antennas, they lost that fight big time years before cellular was invented. The court ruled on that the case was precedent setting. So, the City has left HAMS alone ever since. Then there is one over in a smaller community where the disguised the cell tower as a tall pine tree, but it sticks out like sore thumb. Pines don't grow that tall here, it's too hot in the summer. Plus I can easily see the cell panels in the fake branches. On top of all that as far as I can tell it's not even 5G, so why did the cell company even bother to put it up. It's a recent addition at that. That's the next big fight. In the more affluent part of town, the 5G poles are popping up on many street corners. These people with 500K and up houses are throwing a big fit, and of course the anti-radiation tin foil had folks are coming out of the woodwork to fight this. I found out that those only run 25 watts at the best. I'm like at the base of the pole the radiation is negligible. Besides that, I've been a HAM most of my life and do repeater maintenance at sites with broadcast transmitters, cell sites and everything else. I'm normal, uh normal, uh normal.

Hi there I like the covert transmitters. I know it's a bit outside your area but I remember a mobile mast hidden inside the price display of a Shell petrol station about 10 miles from Scarborough on the a64 . The giveaway was the big green box next to the sine and the time someone drove into it removing most of the plastic parts.

Great stuff Lewis. I really enjoyed this.

A great and very thoroughly researched post! Many thanks for this. It is another example, I am afraid, of churches looking anywhere they can for income, and that the Grade II* status matters little to the Trafford Council planning authorities. While most of the stuff behind the parapets matters little, as it is relatively hidden until you put your drone up there, those panels on the wall are absolutely hideous. That's where I would have thought the controls on the church's fabric from within the diocese should have stepped in: if it doesn't matter to planners, it should surely have mattered to those in the church's hiearchy charged with looking after its architecture, and thus there should have been refusal to house that feature before it went for planning approval. But money talks, and greed is all about us!

Always love your presentations. would very much enjoy seeing more of the hiding in plain sight sort of thing 👍

GB3LM and GB3LS are on the top tower of Lincoln Cathedral along with some ATV repeaters too. It’s a great site with a fantastic height advantage over any other sites in the area. one of the few very old sites for repeaters in the world. As the keeper it’s a great privilege to be able to have access to the site for our hobby.

Great drone footage! Very enjoyable. I look forward to your next video.

Just to point out, those flag pole antennas wouldn’t be used for EE today and EE likely have sector panels hidden inside the church. The flagpoles where typically used Orange 2G (Two flagpoles for special diversity)

Great video. More covert or hidden site videos please!

Great video Lewis. Would love to come in one of your church trips to see how you go about and film it all. 🤞🏽😁 73

How on earth did you find this information ! Great video as always Lewis.

Orange was never an analogue phone provider. It was always digital, staring with GSM on 1800Mhz

Loosely related to churches and communication; were some churches in England built so that the windows in the bell towers would align with those in the neighboring village? The goal being that lights could be used to clandestinely send signals at night. I recall hearing or reading a single reference to this. It sounds implausible to me, but who knows?

Cool

Top notch videography

You should have ended with "Here endeth the lesson" 😆

St Mary's in Bowdon isn't an Airwave site and never has been. It may have be used by the Police for their previous network

There are many, many hidden antennas in areas where they are sensitive to planning issues. Churches are not backwards at capitalising on their roof spaces. A small GPS mushroom being seen as a second antenna and attracting as much rent as the main antenna. Many crypts are equipment rooms...

Better reception for the Lords prayer 🙏

If the church is Church of England, then a Faculty from the Diocese would be needed.

Interesting to see churches, or at least this one, being used to house antennae like this. I don’t know about any such churches doing the same where I live in Deeside, but I know the Steam Mill on the canal running through Chester has the transmitter for Dee Radio. You can barely see it, but it packs a punch, considering how small the station is! You might want to investigate this one in a later video, @RingwayManchester; a walk along the canal hits differently of a sunny day like today’s been! 73s :D

Such great old masonry buildings . here in the US they are left to rot and go to Demolition . great to see a WISP site too I am a part owner in one out here in the country where stringing cable and fibre for a long distance is expensive for a few subscribers . They do need to touch up the paint on them for better camo though enjoy your channel . cheers .

Thanks RM. Always the Coolest Stuff*****

There many such sites around. They are always interesting.

Thanks sharing it surprising just where radio antennas are hiding…. Did you do the drone camera work yourself or did someone else help you with that….

I wonder how many objectors ever went in the church

that was great thanks for sharing

I guess the Churchbells where the Antennas of old.

I'm up for more disguised sites. Even the basics of how radios work blows my mind. How such little electrical power can be picked up potentially thousands of miles away (in other videos) just amazes me

Microwave backhaul is obviously favored by telecoms because they don’t have to run fiber. Which would then require them (as a common carrier) to allow others access. And then we’d all have fiber internet, with no need for the (existing) telecoms’ services. So, it’s cool and all, but also a net negative for customers.

Presumably then this church has lost its bells at some point? Unless all that equipment is right next to the bells, which seems unlikely because it would be dangerous. Our local church very much has bells, I was up there ringing one last night, but I'm very much a learner at it.

1:42 IMO, mobile phone towers are _bigger_ eyesores when they are disguised as trees then when they're not.

As someone who runs a small WISP, churches can be pretty handy for antenna sites. But recently we've had a bit of trouble due to the anti-5G nutters getting involved and kicking up an unnecessary fuss. We've lost a couple tower sites because of them over the years which is an almighty inconvenience.

Mary gets 5G.

Try Brian Eno and Robert Fripp's Evensong Abum. Once heard, cannot be unheard!

"Don't Look Up"....

We have so many covert antennas in the USA - many going back to WWII and Cold War era , and many redundant for the military.

There's an assortment of antennas on top of Lincoln Cathedral which at one point was the tallest building in the world. Where the antennas now sit used to be a spire so it was a lot taller than it is today but that collapsed in a storm at some point. I can't recall all of what's up there but the Lincoln repeater group have a bunch of amateur repeaters up there which is why I went up to help with some work on GB3LM. I took my camera up there and took a bunch of photos and also filmed the climb up on a body mounted action camera. Supposedly the building dates back to about 800AD so it was a very interesting place to explore if a tough climb.

I'm sorry but that church looks totally vandalised by these modern companies and it should never of been granted by the local council for planning permission. This is a place of worship and just because its the highest point it should not of been attacked like this.

Yay a blast from the past. I got married to my first ex wife in that self same church

Just been watching some of your Duga and Cobra Mist videos. Now I'm curious, does Jorn / Jindalee produce any interesting shortwave signals?

Is 3G still in use in the UK? It's completely shut off here in Germany. The frequencies were re-purposed for other technologies. We're using 2G, 4G and 5G on frequencies between 700 and 3,600 MHz. That's it (in 2024).

15 sec ? Damn

My pastor asked me to go into the steeple with the cell phone company officials they offered us a thousand a month but declined it because of asbestos

For twenty plus years a certain food outlet has 3+4g base stations inside certain big "M" signage....

I always love how tin foil hatters complain about cell base stations. But are always the most vocal people when it comes to bad reception.

CHURCHES, SCHOOLS ARE USUALY ON HIGH GROUND.

Your not fooling me - those are hotlines to the heavenly realms. The march of technology knows no limits.

*IN GOD WE TRUST.* *{All others we monitor.}* 🤭🤭🤭

I did not know Orange was analoge? I always thought it was Cellnet and Vodaphone and then Orange digital come along.

What happened to the church spire ??

"health risk" yegods (heh)

Nice music

Comment 981....ooooh yeah!

EE use omnidirectional stick antennas??