Drone Cell Tower Inspections - [New Video]

Hammer Missions · Oct 13, 2022

Anyone conducting cell tower inspections?

We recently undertook a test cell tower inspection and documented the process in a 10 min video!

jephoto · Oct 15, 2022

Can you tell us a bit about this software?
PC only or Mac/iOS as well?
Cost? One time or subscription?
Process yourself or upload to hammer missions for processing?
Accepted by all cell tower owners (companies?)
Approx number of images taken in typical 3D cell tower inspection with that 80% overlap?
(I realize it would vary if doing from ground to top. Just trying to get an idea how fast you would go over that 3,000 image range in first tier plan.)

Interested in getting into inspections. What realistically are the kind of fees we can charge for inspections and ballpark time per mission and editing is involved? Is there a recognized standard of any kind?

**Went to the site. I see there are various monthly/yearly plans.
And its both PC & Mac

jjdun777 · Oct 16, 2022

This dude has no idea how the process works at all for mapping towers doesn’t show any of the ******** you gotta go thru to make a buck lol. Finding the person with keys to even get into the site, getting to the site (not always a paved road and usually at the top of some hill lol), actually shooting the tower possibly but it’s almost never done with anything but a P4Pv2 which is usually required. But every provider wants it done a little different depending on what they process with, getting the keys back to said person and then you can move on to the next site, sometimes 20 miles but sometimes 100. You can make money but it’s a grind, always on the road. Very little home life if you wanna keep getting paid. There’s money to be made but it’s hard money. That dude is a clown! You ain’t gonna make a dime flying cell towers like that for sure.

jephoto · Oct 16, 2022

I was thinking this might be so. The fees that might be offered wouldn’t come close to being worth the time and effort it would go into doing them on a regular basis. But I could be wrong that’s why I’m asking the questions.

Hammer Missions · Oct 16, 2022

jephoto said:
Can you tell us a bit about this software?
PC only or Mac/iOS as well?
Cost? One time or subscription?
Process yourself or upload to hammer missions for processing?
Accepted by all cell tower owners (companies?)
Approx number of images taken in typical 3D cell tower inspection with that 80% overlap?
(I realize it would vary if doing from ground to top. Just trying to get an idea how fast you would go over that 3,000 image range in first tier plan.)

Interested in getting into inspections. What realistically are the kind of fees we can charge for inspections and ballpark time per mission and editing is involved? Is there a recognized standard of any kind?

**Went to the site. I see there are various monthly/yearly plans.
And its both PC & Mac

Works on all platforms (Windows, Mac, ios, Android)
Subscription starting at $49 / mo, scaling to $249 / mo depending on usage.
Upload to Hammer Missions for processing
Acceptance depends on the company but we have end customers (Telcos) using it
Depends on the tower and mode of capture (orbit vs up/down) but most towers we have seen so far are 300 - 700 images.

If you want to get into cell tower inspections, the key is to get contracts for volumes of cell towers as opposed to single one. Starting with one for practice is good but the end goal should be to try and win a contract for a large number of towers, and offer a price which is cheaper for the Telco to use when compared with other methods. Obviously the price must include a healthy margin on top of operating costs to make a profit. We are seeing large volumes of cell towers being inspected in Asia - 30,000+ towers sometimes. Prices vary from Geo to Geo depending on how much alternatives cost and the operating challenges. Hope this helps!

We are about to release a new video on cell tower inspections on youtube sharing all our knowledge on this. We believe in openly distributing what we are learning in the industry, as opposed to keeping this stuff closed doors. That's the only way the industry will continue to develop and we all will have a part to play!