AntennaSearch.com is a mashup of Google Maps and data on cell phone towers and antennas that allows users to see tower locations and coverage areas. It can help determine carrier reception for a specific address and educate users on tower radiation levels. The website benefits teaching by engaging students in determining coverage for their own areas using up-to-date tower data. Teachers can incorporate it into lessons on geometry, precalculus, science fair projects examining radiation levels and potential health effects.

1. AntennaSearch.com
A mashup of Google maps and the location of towers and antennas!

2. What is AntennaSearch.com?
Cell Phone Towers around
the University of Toledo!

Antenna Search places
1,909,615 cell towers
and antennas onto
Google maps to
determine cell
reception in an area.
When you enter a
specific address, the
application creates a
map that shows
existing towers, future
towers, and antennas.

3. Why would YOU need to know where
towers or antennas are located?

This is a tool that the average
person can use to determine
whether your cell phone carrier
has good or poor coverage in a
given area.

It is also important to know the
locations of cell phone towers
because of the radiation levels
that are emitted from them.
Most scientists agree that cell
phone antennas or towers are
unlikely to cause cancer,
however, very few human
studies have focused specifically
on cellular phone towers and
cancer risk.

4. Benefits to Teaching & Learning

Using AntennaSearch.com will
engage students in a meaningful
learning activity that is of high
relevance to teenagers. What
teenager would be happy if they
were unable to get connection in a
certain area?

Also, using this application will
always provide them with the most
up to date information regarding the
placement of cell phone towers and
antennas. Textbooks cannot provide
this unless they are continually
purchased and updated.

5. Using AntennaSearch.com in the classroom

Cell towers can determine how
strong a signal is to a specific
phone and the general direction
the phone is from the tower. In
geometry or precalculus class,
students can use this idea with the
Law of Sines and the Law of
Cosines problems to determine the
location of a person making a
phone call in a specific area.

Another project involves students
learning about the concept of area
and its relationship to linear
measurement. A real-life problem
could be to determine where to
place as few towers as possible,
without overlapping service.
Students would learn about
constructing circles from their
centers and radii.

6. Using AntennaSearch.com in the classroom


There are numerous science
fair projects that can be
developed from using cell
phone towers and antennas.
Students could determine
electromagnetic radiation
emitted by different
cellphones in different
settings at different
distances away from the
cellphone as a potential
safety measure.
Another angle that your cell
phone science fair projects
can have is a medical angle.
A student can research if cell
phone radiation does affect
our health, increases the
risks of certain cancers, or
compare cell phone radiation
to that emitted from a
microwave.