A Straight Dope Classic from Cecil's Storehouse of Human Knowledge
What's the purpose of those antennae with the triangular platform at the top?
July 28, 1989
Dear Cecil:
What are those antennae you see that have a triangular platform on top of a fifty-foot pole with two or three little antennae sticking up or down on the corners?
Dear Mark:
They're for cellular telephones, the former yuppie plaything that has now become a necessity of life. The genius of cellular, of course, is that you can divide any region into an increasingly large number of progressively smaller "cells" (the area served by a single antenna) as the number and density (no offense) of mobile-phone users increases. So the cellular antenna will ultimately become as common a feature of the urban landscape as the dandelion, and about as attractive.
