Kenny, It's great you got this link running. If you do remove some "biological interference" on Buck, it would be great if you could include the trees (tops?) that might block the view to lower elevations. In the photo you took last year (linked following) I have placed a red oval around tree tops that could block my view of the Buck sector in the future. And, if you could check if there is any chance of tipping the sector down a bit, that would be great, too. Does the sector antenna illuminate the tops of the Cascades? Or the lowlands between the Cascades and Puget Sound. I am so close (and below) that I estimate I am in the 2nd sidelobe of the sector beam pattern, losing 20-25dB of signal strength. Thanks and 73, Dave K7DCJ On 8/1/20 7:59 PM, Kenny Richards wrote:
With the help of Rob-NR3O and Mike-N7NFY, a nearly 12 month old to-do item was finished today. We were able to complete the installation of the Buck.Gold PtP, so the Buck site is no longer dependent on the link to Capitol Park.
On my last visit to Buck, I installed a PtP dish and pointed it at Gold using one of the Gold sectors. The plan was to install the Gold PtP last summer, but the list of work items for the Gold visit exceeded our time and no real mount point was available. The plan was to go back up with the necessary mount and install the PtP, but it never happened and winter came.
This morning the crew got onsite around 9:30am and we proceeded to lift the new mount in place and install the dish/radio for the Buck.Gold PtP link. The installation actually went pretty painless, I was able to eyeball the alignment enough to get the initial connection even. The final signal strength wasn't wonderful (~62 I think), but I know the Buck side needs some biological interference removed on the next trip. (which we have permission todo) The dish is mounted on the north facing side of the tower at ~90 feet(?). I was able to run the CAT5 along an existing path, so no additional cable cushions were even needed.
https://www.ku7m.net/drop/Buck.Gold.PtP.jpg
I'll get to work adding the new radios to Cacti tomorrow, along with the Rattlesnake and Blyn radios.
NOTE1: I don't have a portable label printer and didn't think about pre-printing one for the CAT5 in the rack for the new radio. I 'made' a label with some scrap paper, magic marker and a zip tie.
NOTE2: There was a complete 921netmetal and dish in the building at Gold. I have a bad feeling I bought it last summer for the Buck.Gold link, left it onsite when we weren't able to get it installed and completely forgot about it. HamWAN purchased a new one last month for this link, so I'll confirm what happened with Doug and donate it to his stock....
Thanks Kenny
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I've linked 1 file to this email: * Buck 2019 Trees.jpg (3.2 MB) hosted on Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/96dw924b72hj5ow/Buck%202019%20Trees.jpg?dl=0