January 2017 - FSG-public - lists.keekles.org

Re: [FSG-public] Link from Tampa to St Pete - Quick question
by Lu Romero (portable) 06 Jan '17

06 Jan '17

Bryan: You are correct: It is Ham Radio after all :) I was just wondering about the link budget. Not much headroom, but there is always QRO! The bay inversions are notorious for this kind of stuff. The old WTSP path from Gandy to New Port Richey was also a fun one. Most everybody is on fiber now, RF STL is a thing of the past. Regarding H-Pol over water: Forced to by the BAS Band Plan. 7GHz was a shared band, as was 2GHz, since the dawn of TV broadcasting. Fixed point to point in BAS was H-Pol and RPU (ENG) was V-Pol. Right before analog went away, CP was coming into use. Hell, for the longest time, we had a 2GHz STL for WUSF on 2 Gig 7, right in the middle of the RPU ENG band that was a pain in the ass for the news truck guys (and in my case - gal) to work around, especially on the path from North of Tampa to Riverview ENG pickup points. There is a story behind this. Ask me sometime about "Tampa Bay Microwave Wars". Now, with Digital modulation, fiber STL and bonded Cellular, it's all a thing of the past. -lu-W4LT-

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Link from Tampa to St Pete - Quick question
by Luis V. Romero 05 Jan '17

05 Jan '17

Bryan/Ryan: Are you guys doing the link between the two HamWAN sites via RF? If so, what is the link budget? Since you tested it in the winter, I suspect lots of Fresnel zone issues and reflection off of the bay plus tropo issues in the summer. How do I know this? I had a 2 watt/30dBi gain Horizontal pol 7GHz hop from across the street from RayJay to Riverview over Hillsborough Bay and in the summer, the path was a mess due to temperature inversion layer differences over ground vs the bay. Needed diversity receive antennas at Riverview. I had a hell of a time with that path! Thank god for Fiber - The RF path was the secondary STL for WFTS. The path over the bay is BRUTAL in the summer, especially in the early morning/late evening. Wonder how this will affect that link. It will be interesting to see. Don't know how much fade margin you guys have in the link budget. Any thoughts? -lu-W4LT

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Re: [FSG-public] Got my house online
by Luis V. Romero 05 Jan '17

05 Jan '17

Ryan: First, I was not aware that a CSE with lower throughput would muck things up for everyone... So therefore, my idea of a limited CSE is out the window :) The LHA seemed ideal for a low cost device and it was inexpensive, however, I cannot get one via Amazon, and the direct pricing for an International version is a bit steep. So I sent it back. Very small, though. If you still have that DynaDish, I would like to try it out here. I believe I forwarded you a path study from my home to Central downtown, which seems to say I can make it with some headroom to spare. Since my HF antenna tower is a telescopic tilt over affair, the only mount point available is on my roof, probably on my TV antenna mast, roughly 20 ft in the air. If you still have the radio available later in Jan/Early Feb, I wouldn’t mind giving it a go. I have a toilet seal to replace and a HF contest to work in the next couple of weeks, and those are my priority at the moment. Since the DynaDish is three times the cost of the LHA, I will have to "earn" the dough from Honey Do work here. The Toilet project will pay it off. Thanks for the offer! BTW, all three DMR boxes work great in my home, super coverage from KTPA and also Drew Park. I can use the St Pete system from my car very well in upper Pinellas and across past Oldsmar to WestChase area. Really great coverage -- Kudos! 73 Lu Romero - W4LT ----------------------------------xx---------------------------- Lu, I have personally evaluated just about every wireless product MT has for our Tampa HamWAN project. The LHA is part of their newer line with firmware restrictions on band limits, which is the reason I stayed away from that product. After several months of evaluation and testing (and over 10 amazon orders) I found the best radio to be the DynaDish. I have a extra one I can loan you to test if you want. The DynaDish I found to be the best because you pull it out of the box and is pretty much ready to go (unlike the basebox and external antenna which requires assembly). 73, Ryan, KJ4SHL Sent from my iPhone

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Got my house online
by Luis V. Romero 03 Jan '17

03 Jan '17

Bryan: Well, that bodes well for my planned hop from Town 'n Country as the "best" mounting point has some trees in the way. Which device are you using? Are you using the DynaDish? The LHA arrived, and I promptly sent it back to Miami. It seems they cannot sell me a Export version via Amazon due to me having a US address. And their price for an Import version direct is substantially more than the Amazon price for the US version. Attempting to circumvent this issue, so I may lean on you for that loaner CSE for a test. I do have 50 ft of outdoor qualified CAT6 on hand, though! :-) I'm hoping I can get away with a 25dBm radio from here. Since all I'm going to run is a Spotting Cluster and Skimmer program and maybe a OpenSPOT device in the spring, I don't need much bandwidth. Time will tell. Glad you are now on. -Lu - W4LT- > > I didn't think it would work out here as I'm blocked by a building and trees. > Got a -75 and about the same quality Matt has at his house. 8-10 mbit/s > down and 10 up. > > I have a 30dBi antenna on the roof on my tripod, if i turn the rotor the signal > fades :( > > -- > Bryan Fields, W9CR > Florida Simulcast Group, Inc.

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Got my house online
by Bryan Fields 03 Jan '17

03 Jan '17

I didn't think it would work out here as I'm blocked by a building and trees. Got a -75 and about the same quality Matt has at his house. 8-10 mbit/s down and 10 up. I have a 30dBi antenna on the roof on my tripod, if i turn the rotor the signal fades :( -- Bryan Fields, W9CR Florida Simulcast Group, Inc.

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Startup issues with DynaDish 5
by Edward Erny 02 Jan '17

02 Jan '17

Recently received a new Mikro Tik DynaDish 5 and have not been able to bring up the configuration page via browser at 192.168.88.1 as the instructions recommend. With Bryan's help, I have WinBOX connected via mac address. In loading the config data, it appears the data is loaded, however several errors are kicked back, which appear to be systax errors. File attached. The above two problems might be caused by my unfamiliarity with Mikro Tik and how it works. Any ideas or comments would be helpful on getting this antenna/router working on HamWAN. Ed Erny Amateur Radio Call Sign: NZ1Q St Petersburg Amateur Radio Club <https://www.facebook.com/sparcw4gac/> on Facebook

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