[HamWAN PSDR] HamWan in Thurston County

[Bart Kus]

Some of the access hardware options and costs are listed here:

http://hamwan.org/Standards/Component%20Engineering/Client%20Hardware.html

For survey work at multiple sites I'd recommend one of the higher gain 
systems (row 2 or row 3).  You don't need to get the shielding kits if 
you're just surveying, or installing a single radio at a location.  Once 
you have a signal reading using the 2ft diameter high gain equipment, 
you can then decide if the signal is so strong that you can save some 
money by getting some lower gain equipment for that site.  More power 
makes for faster speeds though, so choose wisely.  :)

Luckily, we do have two cell sites capable of covering parts of Thurston 
County already:

http://hamwan.org/Puget%20Sound%20Data%20Ring/Sites/Capitol%20Peak.html
http://hamwan.org/Puget%20Sound%20Data%20Ring/Sites/Baldi.html

Capitol Peak is way closer, but looks like its signal to Olympia will be 
obscured by a nearby mountain ridge shadow.  It should land good signal 
in Tumwater and other areas.  You can look at the individual sector 
antenna coverage maps on the page I linked above. You're probably most 
interested in Sector 2 (bearing 120 deg).

The Thurston EOC should be able to get a good link to Capitol Peak as 
long as it can get a signal above the local trees.  That's gonna be your 
#1 problem, is clearing local obstacles.  Once you have a clear line of 
sight to a site, the distance doesn't much matter.

To maximize your chances of success at the various sites you want to 
connect, you can increase the number of angles from which signal can 
come.  Capitol Peak will shoot from the West, Baldi will shoot from the 
East, and if you have access to Crawford, that would help shoot from the 
south.  A single site (like the EOC) can link to multiple cell sites at 
once for redundancy purposes.  We typically put multiple links into EOCs 
to make sure they stay online despite partial system failures.

--Bart


On 3/27/2017 5:11 AM, Lee Chambers wrote:
> Thanks, Bart,
>
> The Olympia Amateur Radio Society (OARS) repeater system is supported by the Thurston County Department of Emergency Management, who pays our site rental costs for our three repeaters. The 2meter repeater is on the east side water tank, and our 220/440 repeaters are on Crawford mountain. That doesn't mean we can add more equipment, tho--but, maybe.
>   
> Recently we've been discussing how communications would work in a major incident, a Cascadia earthquake for example,or some similar sized event. The volume of traffic needing to be moved from temporary shelters at schools and churches or like structures will probably swamp our repeaters quickly. It would be of great value to design a HamWan that could be reached via radio from a dozen or so sites. The ECC, at the south end of the Oly airport, would need to be reached, of course, as it's the addressee. And to keep interest and proficiency up day to day coverage of the downtown areas--Oly, Lacey, Tumwater, maybe Yelm, at a minimum--ideally the populated areas of the county--would be desirable.
>
> The Boy Scout headquarters is on the north side of Tumwater hill and had, in some other life, a radio system, and the antenna mount remains. We could put a gateway there. There are other towers and high points we can leverage.
>
> A real question we wonder about is what a node costs and how do we test for coverage. OARS could be approached to pay for test equipment and WAN equipment and would likely become an enthusiastic player/user/provider if we could articulate a reasonable path to a Thurston County HamWan that can serve both the members and the emergency response effort.
> I've cc'ed Bruce wa7bam as he is club President. I'd bet a club presentation defining next steps would be appropriate--I know he can make time on his agenda!  We meet the third Wednesdays of each month btw.
>   
> Thanks for your enthusiasm!  A functioning WAN in a disaster makes all sorts of commo possibilities practical. I'm up for the project. What do we do next?
> Lee
> Ki7ss
>
>
> Lee
>
>> On Mar 26, 2017, at 9:25 PM, Bart Kus <me at bartk.us> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Lee,
>>
>> This list is a good start.  You've got the right folks.
>>
>> Can you give me some ideas of what sites you have available and what areas you'd like to cover?  If you have any specific goals (eg: EOCs) that'd be good info too.
>>
>> We can do some planning based on that info.
>>
>> --Bart
>>
>>
>>> On 3/26/2017 7:28 PM, Lee Chambers wrote:
>>> Hi!  The Olympia Amateur Radio Society would like to help with this project and help build it out here. How do we get involved?
>>>
>>> Lee Chambers
>>> Ki7ss
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> PSDR mailing list
>>> PSDR at hamwan.org
>>> http://mail.hamwan.net/mailman/listinfo/psdr
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