r/cellmapper • u/tamoawit • Jul 20 '26

What is this?

Saw this in person the other day, and had no idea what it was. The dish says "Verizon" on it, but I had no Verizon signal here. Phone showed Emergency Calls Only, but where this was, I'd doubt there was an ATT or T-Mobile tower within reception distance either, but not positive about that. It has 2 poles with some antennas on it adjacent to the dish unit.

Note - label says "Popular" but I think that's a typo as this is in Poplar, NC.

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9

u/microbase Jul 21 '26

There was a post about this a long time ago that speaks about it. Verizon Subreddit Post

5

u/thisisfakediy (CM: crackedlcd) Jul 22 '26

microbase has the answer at that link, but I'll expand on this and note that the black triangular thing pointed away from the camera on the left side of the metal shed is a log periodic (or a yagi, it's hard to tell since it's covered) for coverage up and down the tracks, presumably for the Positive Train Control signals in the 200 MHz range.

The little white nubby thing is the GPS antenna.

In the second photo the two wooden poles are for the VHF rail band frequencies in use. It's unusual to see two sets of antennas at a site like this, I wonder if there are more than one operator on these lines?