[HamWAN PSDR] Site details?

Fri Mar 17 17:48:01 PDT 2023

To Tom’s point, the distance almost doesn’t matter. We’ve had links much farther than the 28 miles you’re looking at. You would of course want to select a client setup with the most gain possible for reliability, but almost universally if you can see it, you can connect.

Nigel

> On Mar 17, 2023, at 17:34, Nick Kartsioukas <nick at explodinglemur.org> wrote:
> 
> I can see nothing from my roof.  From my original mail, "For example it looks like I "only" need a 35' mast for Baldi, but at 28mi away I'm not sure I can get connected reliably, vs Beacon or Capitol Park which are much closer but I'd need at least a 66' mast thanks to local terrain and trees."  Local terrain and trees are a challenge here which is why I want to gather and simulate as much as I can before I try to do something that a simulation would rule out.
> 
> On Thu, Mar 16, 2023, at 22:17, Tom Hayward wrote:
>> I can appreciate the desire to play around with the mapping tools and 
>> coverage models. I have done a lot of that myself.
>> 
>> We've found that the most reliable predictor of coverage, aside from an 
>> RF survey, is a pair of binoculars. Can you see the tower while 
>> standing on your roof? 
>> 
>> Tom KD7LXL 
>> 
>> On Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 21:17 Nick Kartsioukas <nick at explodinglemur.org> wrote:
>>> Because I enjoy playing around with radio coverage mapping tools and want to have the closest representation of reality?
>>> I'm in an exceptionally non-optimal area for PSDR, so I want to have as much information as I can about required mast height and link budget for each site before I go actually installing anything.
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Mar 16, 2023, at 15:45, Stephen Kangas wrote:
>>>> Nick, I'm not certain why precision matters here.  My experience 
>>>> working with Bart & Doug assisting them putting up the Rattlesnake Mtn 
>>>> sector is that they may deviate from the exact bearing only to provide 
>>>> better coverage to the area below, avoiding obstacles and focusing on 
>>>> the user community.  We're not talking really narrow beams here.  You 
>>>> should be able to expect that if there is a sector antenna pointed to 
>>>> your area that it is optimized for your chances of connection 
>>>> regardless of how precise the sector antennas matches 0deg N bearing 
>>>> offsets.
>>>> 
>>>> FWIW, Stephen W9SK
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: PSDR <psdr-bounces at hamwan.org> On Behalf Of Carl Leon
>>>> Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2023 3:16 PM
>>>> To: 'Puget Sound Data Ring' <psdr at hamwan.org>
>>>> Subject: Re: [HamWAN PSDR] Site details?
>>>> 
>>>> Those are the standard. I think there is one single sector site where 
>>>> that varies, but am not certain.
>>>> Carl, N7KUW
>>>> 
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: PSDR <psdr-bounces at hamwan.org> On Behalf Of Nick Kartsioukas
>>>> Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2023 9:51 AM
>>>> To: psdr at hamwan.org
>>>> Subject: Re: [HamWAN PSDR] Site details?
>>>> 
>>>> Sorry, I phrased that part poorly.  Are all sectors aligned at 
>>>> 0/120/240 when present, or do they deviate from those bearings?
>>>> 
>>>> On Thu, Mar 16, 2023, at 08:26, Doug Kingston wrote:
>>>>> Not all the cell sites have every sector.  If a cell site is on the 
>>>>> side of a hill or has a large obstruction immediately adjacent, we 
>>>>> omit the sector facing into the obstruction as it would not serve any 
>>>>> useful purpose.
>>>>> We have tried to depict the available sector in the map on the 
>>>>> website, but you may need to zoom in to see that detail.  If you have 
>>>>> questions about particular sites, Feel free to contact me directly
>>>>> (dpk at randomnotes.org) or mail the netops@ list or ask on our IRC 
>>>>> channel.
>>>>> 
>>>>> -Doug-
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 9:15 PM Nick Kartsioukas 
>>>>> <nick at explodinglemur.org> wrote:
>>>>>> I've been able to find location info for most of the PSDR sites and antenna height info for some of them.  Do they all have sectors pointing 0/120/240 degrees relative to north?  Is there anywhere that has EIRP info?  I'm trying to see how tall a mast I need to get connected, and whether or not I can even make link for some of the sites.  For example it looks like I "only" need a 35' mast for Baldi, but at 28mi away I'm not sure I can get connected reliably, vs Beacon or Capitol Park which are much closer but I'd need at least a 66' mast thanks to local terrain and trees.
>>>>>> At the moment I'm using https://ispdesign.ui.com/ (which now has LIDAR data for buildings/trees!) and have also used RadioMobile Deluxe in the past.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> PSDR mailing list
>>>>>> PSDR at hamwan.org
>>>>>> https://mail01.fmt.hamwan.net/mailman/listinfo/psdr
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> PSDR at hamwan.org
>>>>> https://mail01.fmt.hamwan.net/mailman/listinfo/psdr
>>>> _______________________________________________
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