reconrider - usually you can tell the owner or manager of the tower by signage on the gates, because they are required to have contact info posted along with FAA ID #. You can also usually tell if cellular is used on the tower because of the array of antenna pannels that usually are mounted 360* around the tower, usually toward the top portion of the tower. Most other services will have long pole type omni or even yagis mounted. You also have to keep in mind that many tower owners will "lease" space on their tower to other companies. Our towers have numerous services loaded. Our 7 1,000 footers have 2-3 trunked systems, at least one cell, a bunch of single repeaters, such as community repeaters and VHF links into the trunked systems, ect. So just because you see the cell pannels don't mistake it for being a cell site only. We even have sirius/xm ground station broadcasters on some of ours.
Jeff - The close call is not a tell all, but does help. i have mine locked down to just 153.9 - 174 and the 800 band. i do not lock out the data, to help find control channels. The biggest headache is if you are trying to find something in an area where there are several towers. You definetly want to block out the FM broadcast band. I have used it with a degree of success with the Ohio MARCS sites up here. It even works better if you can unplug your antenna lead in from the scanner once you think you have located the tx'r and want to help narrow it down further. I don't use the feature that often and probably do not make the use it is really intended for, but it is another tool.
As far as the Pea Landing tower; my understanding is that it belongs to the County and that it was supposed to be an additional site for the BC vhf/uhf LTR systems and that there was an agreement with the State to allow them to put VIPER on that site as well. That was one of the last postings from one of the locals in BC. There hasn't been a local post since then. I was just wondering since those that were posting here were part of the system as vol firefighters and such, if someone with the County put a lock down on their involvment and posting on RR? Censorship by big brother? I am sure the County officials are quite embarrased by problems of their systems and the negative feed back that it is generating.
