[HamWAN PSDR] Haystack coming up as a 2nd gen site

[Bart Kus]

Hello,

After some discussion we decided to deploy Haystack as a 2nd generation 
site.  It has a huge view of the Puget Sound, it will have a very fast 
uplink (via the new Queen Anne facility), so it will do well with the 
extra throughput capacity.  What this means is:

1) The sector modems are dual-channel (MIMO, RB911) instead of 
single-channel (SISO, Metal).  This, in theory, doubles speed while 
still using the same bandwidth.
2) The sector antennas are dual-polarity, and higher gain to (mostly) 
compensate for the power loss of going to the lower-powered MIMO modems
3) The sector antennas and dishes feature shielding materials to 
minimize interference between the radios
4) All the modems are in metal enclosures to prevent any stray radiation 
and interference

This 2nd gen architecture is fully compatible with 1st and 2nd gen 
clients.  Going to a 2nd gen client may not actually be the speediest 
thing for you!  The 1st gen client setup (Metal 5SHPn + Poynting 30dBi 
grid) offers better gain + EIRP than a typical RB912 + 2ft dish 2nd gen 
client setup.  That added signal power may actually prove to achieve 
faster speeds than the added 2nd channel of dual-polarized MIMO signals 
when your signal levels are low.  If your signal levels to the site are 
high, then switching to a 2nd gen client should be beneficial.

I have footed the $601 bill (shipping included) for the upgrade.  I have 
also allocated one of my personal MIMO sector antennas (~$150 value) to 
the cause.  If someone feels like raising a vote to compensate me fully 
or partially, that'd be awesome.

The reason for the rapid action is I got word our site sponsor would 
like to deploy this weekend.  I'm not sure if the hardware will make it 
in time at this point, but at least I tried.  If it doesn't make it, 
we'll do a 2nd round of deployment later.  There's plenty of work to be 
done at the site with installing the mounting points and solar power system.

BTW, if you'd like to volunteer your time and energy, the deployment is 
sometime this weekend.  The mountain is near Sultan, WA.  I don't know 
which day(s) we're going up.  Let me know if you'd like to help.

Thanks,

--Bart