Crystal Mountain / RAMROD
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 [image: Inline image 3] [image: Inline image 4]
Randy, The issue has always been site access. We’ve also identified a potential path via Naneum, but again, getting a site to locate the gear on is the issue. If you have leads in this direction, please do let us know. Nigel
On Jul 28, 2017, at 21:09, 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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<image.png> _______________________________________________ PSDR mailing list PSDR@hamwan.org http://mail.hamwan.net/mailman/listinfo/psdr
I could potentially negotiate space atop Tacoma General hospital, Good Sam hospital, and pretty much any other Multicare facility if it would be of strategic value to the Hamwan infrastructure. Thanks, Paul ________________________________ From: PSDR <psdr-bounces@hamwan.org> on behalf of Nigel Vander Houwen <nigel@nigelvh.com> Sent: Friday, July 28, 2017 9:17:18 PM To: Puget Sound Data Ring Subject: Re: [HamWAN PSDR] Crystal Mountain / RAMROD Randy, The issue has always been site access. We’ve also identified a potential path via Naneum, but again, getting a site to locate the gear on is the issue. If you have leads in this direction, please do let us know. Nigel
On Jul 28, 2017, at 21:09, 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
<image.png>
<image.png> _______________________________________________ PSDR mailing list PSDR@hamwan.org http://mail.hamwan.net/mailman/listinfo/psdr
_______________________________________________ PSDR mailing list PSDR@hamwan.org http://mail.hamwan.net/mailman/listinfo/psdr
Thanks Nigel, The sites in my path profile are: Crystal Mountain. 6,778' AMSL 46 56.2854 N, -121 30.0075 W That's in the Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, at the the top of Alta Crystal Mountain Resort. The resort is a concessionaire of the National Forest Service. Darland Mountain. 6,828' AMSL 46 30.8378 N, -121 12.5952 W Formerly an NFS Fire Lookout site, tower removed in 1966. Site is solar powered and operated by WA7SAR/Yakima County Search and Rescue. The 146. Vehicle accessible, in the Wenatchee National Forest. [image: Inline image 1] Yakima County. The Yakima County office is a 4 story+penthouse office building at 1st and MLK. Assuming it can see over the county jail across the street, it has a path to Darland. [image: Inline image 2] Yakima EMD It would also work equally well to the Yakima EMD office in Union Gap. They have a nice tower there that looks like 100' tall. Randy W3RWN
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
[image: Inline image 3]
[image: Inline image 4]
_______________________________________________ PSDR mailing list PSDR@hamwan.org http://mail.hamwan.net/mailman/listinfo/psdr
Thanks Tom, I would have liked to have had the WiFi network we deployed at Thunder-Mountain Middle School (TMMS) linked via HamWan instead of the T-Mobile 4G LTE connection I ended up using. :-) I checked the path from Baldi to TMMS before the event to see if it was possible. We had two radio-less allstar nodes testing during the event. I had one at TMMS in control and KD7DK tried a second from the Ashford area. It worked ok over the T-Mobile 4G, and in Ashford they used the Internet at the motel. The radio-less nodes are really good in a couple of use cases. -Very handy as remote control point beyond the reach of the RF reach of a repeater, but as a means for accessing the repeater. For example, in an EOC to access distant repeaters. (Over HamWAN of course!) -Also useful for net control stations as the radio-less allstar nodes are full duplex. If net control is keyed-down and "doubles" with someone, the other person'd audio still comes through the speaker so net control can take whatever action is needed. Re Site Access. I'm familiar with Raven Roost and Bethel Ridge. I think AT&T called them American River and Tieton when they where TD-2 Microwave. http://long-lines.net/places-routes/maps/WA76.html Similarly, the towers still exist on the north path Rattlesnake Ledge - Hyak - Cle Elum - Kittitas Re contacts in Yakima.. I think I know someone who knows someone. Let me chat with them and revert. -Randy W3RWN
participants (4)
-
Nigel Vander Houwen -
Paul's eMail -
Randy Neals -
Tom Hayward