This former AT&T Long Lines microwave relay site near Barnett, Missouri, was a repeater along the Kansas City-Halifax microwave relay route. The route supported both telephone and television traffic between the mid-1960s and the 1990s.
According to the 1966 map, Barnett had two hops: one to Cole Camp (approximately 24 miles west) and the other to Brinktown (approximately 36 miles southeast). The 1979 map is slightly more confusing, since Versailles, Eldon and Jefferson City were added in the area. The map isn’t detailed enough to depict whether Barnett hopped to Eldon (most likely, due to close proximity) or Jefferson City. (The most likely case is Barnett hops to Eldon, which hops to Versailles.)
Adding to the confusion, Maprad.io list the site’s last hop to an unlikely fellow Long Lines site: Prairie Home, in Cooper County — approximately 31 miles north. This hop isn’t depicted in any maps I’ve seen, and suggests both Prairie Home and Barnett were active in the 2000s. The license mentioned in Maprad.io (license WLK708) was granted to AT&T Communications of the Southwest, Inc., effective Nov. 29, 2001, and canceled before its anticipated expiration of Feb. 1, 2010. The license states the hop operated at 6 GHz with a power of 79.2 watts EIRP.
On the site itself, Barnett is built around a hardened concrete structure, a familiar sight along this route. Next to the building is the tower, which is still populated with five KS-15676 horns (two on the top platform pointing west to Cole Camp, with the other two on top and the outrigger pointing southeast to Brinktown) and two Gabriel horns on top. It appears the Gabriel horns match perfectly with two Gabriel horns located on Prairie Home, which validates the Maprad.io license linked above. Much like Prairie Home, some of waveguide is still intact on the tower, but has been removed at the base of the tower to the building. (Some waveguides running up are completely missing altogether.)
Barnett is a unique site because I can discuss what’s inside the site, thanks to a YouTube video someone else posted where they enter the site before climbing the tower. (Note: I do not condone trespassing onto a site, and especially do not condone climbing any tower without the proper climbing gear and protection.) In the brief look inside the concrete structure, we see lots of equipment left behind: a General Motors diesel generator (a staple of these sites), empty racks with wiring, possible parts of the former TD-2 radios, the Lectrodryer filter for decontaminating pressurized air for the waveguides, among other things.
A sign on the door to the facility reveals its current owner: American Tower. The site is registered with FCC ASR #1005481. FCC records indicate it was constructed around February 1964 and reports the tower being roughly 78 meters (~256 feet) tall.
Photos: July 2022
C. Vance submitted these photos of Barnett in November 2022 after taking them on a trip in July 2022. He has listed these photos under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Creative Commons license.
Photos submitted Nov. 9, 2022, taken July 14, 2022.
Page published Nov. 11, 2022. Last updated: Nov. 20, 2022 (updated height of tower per FCC records, added Creative Commons notice.)