More than likely - local jamming on the downlink side ‘control’ or setup channel was taking place in the vicinity of the ranch, as is customary when ‘they’ don’t want the PSTN accessible by a subject who they have ‘cornered’.
One of the local cell providers indicated nothing had been done by them, and no ‘alarms’ were showing in the system.
Jamming the local control channel would show *no* alarms either, as that is an xmit function at the cell site and off-the-air signals are *not* monitored except by the public and subscribers ...
Good to know. Thanks.