For over ten years I've been taking photos of cell sites as a personal hobby of mine. I have also enjoyed browsing photos of cell/TV/radio sites overseas such as http://tx.mb21.co.uk/. After I gave a presentation about my hobby a few years ago, many people suggested that I share my photos online. So in response to positive interest, I have set up a website at http://cellsites.nz/ which showcases my cell site photos. I've included over 700 photos of cell sites in New Zealand from December 2003 until the end of 2014. There are a few more batches of photos from last year I'm yet to upload.

The quality of the photos does vary as I do not have originals of all the photos taken during the earlier years (*note to self: backup, backup, backup*) and some have been taken by crappy camera phones. These photos are available under a Creative Commons (CC) licence which prohibits commercial use. However if you are wanting to use these photos for commercial use please get in touch with me via PM and I can provide a licence for commercial use of the original photo for a fee.

For some sites, there have been photos of the same location over a period of years which makes for interesting comparison to see what have changed over the years (e.g. switching from omnidirectional to sector antennas, UMTS/LTE upgrades, relocations, etc). Some good ones are:-
- Glendowie West (ex-Spark, ex-Vodafone)
- Glen Innes South (Spark)
- Glen Innes South (Vodafone)
- Kohimarama (Vodafone)
- Meadowbank North (Spark, Vodafone)
- Mission Bay (2degrees, Vodafone, Woosh)
- Mission Bay (Spark)
- Orakei East (2degrees, Spark)
- Orakei East (Vodafone)
- St Heliers (ex-Vodafone)

I've lived in Kohimarama for most of my life or so so that's why many of my photos are of East Auckland sites but there are many across Auckland as well as some around the country.

I also have a interest in collecting cell identities. The website also provides data on UMTS URA/CellID and LTE TAC/CellID for both Spark and Vodafone. As I have done most of the data collection on Spark LTE there is a lot of data for that network, especially in Auckland. I managed to get some data for Vodafone before I ported over to Spark a few months ago but there's not a lot there. No data for 2degrees because I have not been a 2degrees customer for a few years.

If you have an iPhone you can use the *3001#12345#* trick to get access to the UMTS Cell Environment -> UMTS RR Info screen (UMTS) or Serving Cell Info screen (LTE) to find the URA/TAC and CellID you are currently being served off and match it up with the data on the website. I understand Android phones have access to a range of apps which provide access to these data as well.

One important point to note is that the site names, e.g. "Orakei East (2degrees, Spark)", are all named by me. I decided early on not to use the operators' site names as it was too difficult to use them and still have it make sense. For example Vodafone has a site called Orakei right in the middle of Remuera while Spark has a site with the same name in Orakei proper. Spark's site is called "Orakei East (2degrees, Spark)" and to be consistent the Vodafone site next door is called "Orakei East (Vodafone)".

Please let me know via replying here or PMing me if you have any feedback about the website. I would also be happy to accept contributions of both photos and/or cell identity data. Just PM me to discuss how you can make your contributions. Any photos contributed will need to be CC licensed as well (with attribution to you).

- James