Hi Randy,

The Crystal VHF repeater and HamWAN link were installed temporarily for RAMROD by Bruce WB7DOB and Casey WW7CH. I helped configure the equipment but was out of the country on install day. Howard N7GHT also helped. We are working with the site managers to get permission to leave this gear installed permanently, but don't have an answer yet.

It is a complicated site with many tenants. All the antennas are mounted to the side or roof of the building and there's not much room left. Even if we get permission to leave the repeater permanently, I don't think there's going to be room for any additional HamWAN equipment.

There are other potential paths across the mountains. Raven's Roost is one option. Although it can't see Darland directly, it can see Bethel Ridge and Mission Ridge. Do you have any access to Bethel Ridge? Stan K7DKK has been working on improvements to Raven's Roost with the goal of setting up an FM repeater to link Yakima EOC and Camp Murray. If you know people associated with Yakima EOC that are interested in a high-speed data connection to Camp Murray, you might have them express this interest to Stan. We would love to be part of his plan.

It's too bad the middle school is in the shadow of the hill and cannot connect directly to HamWAN. It would have been nice to see your "radio-less" Allstar node connected via ham radio!

Tom KD7LXL

On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 9:09 PM, Randy Neals <randy@neals.ca> wrote:

Hi all,

I was helping with RAMROD yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Crystal VHF repeater was operating on a HamWan connection back to Baldi.
Not sure who to thank/congratulate for that, but the audio quality at Crystal was.."Crystal Clear".. :-)

Switching the topic slightly...
Getting HamWan across the mountains to Eastern Wash is something that is talked of a bit.

I did some studying and identified a route along existing Ham Radio sites to Yakima.
Baldi <-> Crystal Mountain <-> Darland Mountain <-> Yakima
I understand the complexities of site access, and that access to these sites may not be easy ot even feasible. But, having a workable path profile is a starting place.

I'd be willing to contribute to the project in time and resources.
But would like to know if others are interested in undertaking such a project because it needs to be useful long term to have the support for maintenance and ongoing operation.

If it were feasible to land the Yakima end on the Yakima County building, that would be another EOC on HamWan, and perhaps the pitch there is an alternative comms path to Camp Murray and to Seattle.

I look forward to others thoughts on this.
I'm sure I'm not the only person to think about this, so in part, wanted to see if anyone else is interested in this area.

Randy
W3RWN

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