Lookout is back online with all gear operational. Sectors 1 and 2 should
both be reachable again.
As with the problem last year when S3 and the SnoDEM PTP were repaired,
these problems were also cable problems.
It is notable that the cable problems were not of our making or of our
cabling itself, but that it was damaged (twice now) when an unsecured 1" RF
hardline was causing damage to nearby gear (including ours) on the tower.
There was also unsecured cables to what appears to be a substantial yet
abandoned weather station at the top of the tower. This cable was broken in
multiple places. Broken pieces around our gear have been removed and we
secured as much of the hardline as we could that runs near our gear with
temporary fixes. We'll need to work with the facility owner to see if we
can get that particular hardline mounted properly.
We also took up a wall mount patch panel that has become part of the new
changes we're making to sites going forward. The CAT cables from the tower
are run first to the patch panel in a manner that allows any water into the
CAT cable jacket to drain out prior to hitting the RJ45 connectors and
causing shorts and corrosion.
In the case of Lookout we were fortunate - while all of the failed cables
had water in the jacket to the inside of the facility, the cables were
mounted in such a way that water didn't get into the RJ45s or the lightning
arrestors. Because of this there was no damage to lightning arrestors, POE
power supplies, or our sector/PtP gear on the tower. An additional visit
will be made at a later date (no climbers needed) to integrate this into the
setup along with correct length patch cables for between the patch panel and
the lightning arrestors.
A BIG thanks to Kenny and Tom for the tower work. There was as much
(arguably more) work cleaning up the mess left by the hardline and weather
station cables than there was running new CAT cable for our stuff. Thanks
also to Tony and Steve for their help on the ground. All in all it went (I
thought) >very< well. It's been a long time since we've had Lookout in full
operation.
If any of you have used Sectors 1 or 2 in the past, please give them a test
and let me know the results via the netops(a)hamwan.org
<mailto:netops@hamwan.org> mailing list.
Tom / Kenny - feel free to chime in with your observations and/or
corrections as you had the best view from the tower.
Cheers,
Rob Salsgiver - NR3O
