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