Mark, 5.9GHz is VERY VERY line of sight. A couple trees may work, a forest or landforms will not. It will not bend like VHF/UHF can be made to work. And the signals required are sensitive enough that reflections very rarely work. I will second what Stephen suggests, try taking your setup with you in the car to a location where you have perfect visibility to the site with binoculars, hit it with a laser pointer, line of sight. Make sure everything works, then take it home. The coverage map should roughly show where line of sight is possible, though it doesn’t have any way to account for trees, and assumes antenna height on top of a two story house. I won’t say it’s impossible to get signals where we don’t show coverage on the map, we’ve seen a number of cases where near the edges, or with a tower, or other mitigating factor make it possible, but the map is generally a fairly good indicator of success. There are higher gain dishes that can be reasonably had, up to about 30dB, but the roughly 5dB to be gained from that over your current setup isn’t where I’d put the effort in. That boost might take you from no signal to a spotty/marginal one, but if you can get a spotty/marginal one with your existing setup, that boost would take you into more consistent and better link territory. Nigel

On Nov 2, 2021, at 1:02 PM, Stephen Kangas <stephen@kangas.com> wrote:

If I were you, I’d travel to a location right next to and LOS (tower visible) of your desired HamWAN sector to confirm that it connects and is configured properly, before experimenting farther away where you can’t see the tower with your eyes. Stephen W9SK

From: PSDR <psdr-bounces@hamwan.org> On Behalf Of Mark Hartman Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2021 12:57 PM To: psdr@hamwan.org Subject: [HamWAN PSDR] HamWan UpRiver?

I have all my equipment but tried in the past to get a signal and there seems to be none here where I live. I tried pointing toward Lookout-Snodem but was not able to see any signal. I tried pointing down toward Triangle but no luck there. I live near Rasar State park. I can get bounce TV signals off the mountain from Bellingham at 180 degrees... Just wondering if there might be a method I haven't tried or a signal detector I could use other than looking at the screen to measure signals and figure out if I need boosters or something else with higher gain? Maybe my dish isn't strong enough? I have a Mikrotik LHG 5ghz 24.5 dbi dish programmed for our local HamWan. <-I went through all the steps to set up a few times and checked my work... It's not the issue of my misunderstanding settings. It is the International version not the US. At least I'm not misunderstanding how to set up the Mikrotik. Pointing it where the signal is precisely is where I'm going wrong. There may not be enough signal to be found by the dish. I've re-aligned dish network and directv dishes before and I know it's a very precise pointing process. My question to everyone, Is there a stronger version with high gain or a device to check signal strength here? I am limited to how high I can put a pole in the air because I rent. But I have HF antennas and 2 poles about 30 feet in the air. I have looked at the map and it shows the signal is not here or weak. Just wondering what I could do? N7MWH Mark _______________________________________________ PSDR mailing list PSDR@hamwan.org http://mail.hamwan.net/mailman/listinfo/psdr

I and a couple other local hams have the LHG 5 International version, and it works well. When there was a HamWAN sector on Rattlesnake mountain (it’s gone now because of the DNR mess) I had up to 60-70 Mbps downloads from 3mi away; I had to put it on a 6ft mast on the top ridge of my house to get it up high enough to have a straight LOS to the visible tower, due to a couple cedar trees in the way. That model dish also works well as a portable HamWAN station, mounted on a camera tripod or other arrangement, of course not as many options for a clear LOS from the ground but very useful for emcomm Winlink, APRS igate, and other such unencrypted ham applications we’ve tested. We’re already really missing having HamWAN, as otherwise it would have proven its role again in this past 5th Saturday statewide emcomm exercise. Stephen W9SK From: PSDR <psdr-bounces@hamwan.org> On Behalf Of Jesse Victors via PSDR Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2021 2:39 PM To: psdr@hamwan.org Subject: Re: [HamWAN PSDR] HamWan UpRiver? I've had success with the MikroTik XL HP5 dish, which I really really like. It has a gain of 27 dBi. I have been able to get a signal at close range when some obstruction were in the way, but it was very slow. I too was initially overly optimistic and misunderstood its tolerance (5 GHz WiFi goes through walls, what's the issue?) but at long ranges it really needs to be be visible. I've attached a picture of my first link to Haystack using the dish, just about 24 miles distance. The dish is stabilized with a small piece of wood from Lowe's and a patio umbrella stand. I'm sure the signal goes through some wires or that distant pole, but that's acceptable. Jesse KJ7YLS Sent from ProtonMail mobile -------- Original Message -------- On Nov 2, 2021, 12:57 PM, Mark Hartman < enochianborg@gmail.com <mailto:enochianborg@gmail.com> > wrote: I have all my equipment but tried in the past to get a signal and there seems to be none here where I live. I tried pointing toward Lookout-Snodem but was not able to see any signal. I tried pointing down toward Triangle but no luck there. I live near Rasar State park. I can get bounce TV signals off the mountain from Bellingham at 180 degrees... Just wondering if there might be a method I haven't tried or a signal detector I could use other than looking at the screen to measure signals and figure out if I need boosters or something else with higher gain? Maybe my dish isn't strong enough? I have a Mikrotik LHG 5ghz 24.5 dbi dish programmed for our local HamWan. <-I went through all the steps to set up a few times and checked my work... It's not the issue of my misunderstanding settings. It is the International version not the US. At least I'm not misunderstanding how to set up the Mikrotik. Pointing it where the signal is precisely is where I'm going wrong. There may not be enough signal to be found by the dish. I've re-aligned dish network and directv dishes before and I know it's a very precise pointing process. My question to everyone, Is there a stronger version with high gain or a device to check signal strength here? I am limited to how high I can put a pole in the air because I rent. But I have HF antennas and 2 poles about 30 feet in the air. I have looked at the map and it shows the signal is not here or weak. Just wondering what I could do? N7MWH Mark