I am a new user in San Jose, CA. (CM97bg) looking to connect with both the AREDN community and the network.
I have a Ubiquiti NanoStation M5 NSM5 arriving in a few days but am not sure that there is anything to connect it to.
From the coverage maps it looks like Black Mountain is the only possible connection point beyone tunneling. I also have direct line of sight to both Mt Uhmunhum and Mt Hamilton. There are quite a few repeaters on Uhmunum and it probably has line of sight to Black Mountain (a guess) so this might be a logical growth point for the network in the South Bay if there is anyone interested.
Is there anyone able to guide me on what to do?
Thanks,
Scott, W1MVY
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New user in San Jose CM97bg looking to connect
Fri, 03/24/2023 - 13:44
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W1MVY
New user in San Jose CM97bg looking to connect
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I just started looking in to this as well. I'm in Santa Clara Cm97ah and was surprised to see such a weak mesh presence in the area. Maybe we can chat some time about getting soming going in our area.
Want to meet on the Good Samaritan (WVARA) 70 cm repeater (441.35 pl 88.5)? I can be on almost any time.
I connected with Jim, N9JIM, the guy that manages the Black Mountain AREDN site. Jim is a great contact and very knowledgable about what can and can't be done at this point. Jim came over to my house in Willow Glen with an AREDN dish and hung out for an afternoon playing with AREDN and filling me in on both the people and technology involved.
As it turns out, you really need to be line-of-sight with absolutely nothing blocking - that means no houses (the easy one) but also no trees. In San Jose, this makes the majority of the properties in the city unable to use Black Mountain, unless they are very tall, on a hill that can see Black Mountain unoccluded or have a large open space in front of them (like a field or huge parking lot) facing towards Black. Black is just too far north for reliable and easy San Jose 5.8 Ghz coverage.
There is some good news though. The West Valley club has shown some early interest in hosting an AREDN relay site on Good Samaritan - it will be awhile before we know much about this or it is implemented, but this may open up a slightly wider area of northern San Jose and Los Gatos. There is also talk of an AREDN backbone site on Mt Thayer and possibly another, Mt Allison in the East Bay. I suspect that Mt Thayer (near Uhmunum) would be our best bet - but San Jose needs a bunch of hams to both lobby for this and help fund/implement it. Uhmunum is no good because all the radio towers are on a peak behind the radar tower so would not cover San Jose well with microwave frequencies. Also the Penninsula AREDN guys have some energy about them - a welcome change from many local clubs.
Another possibility is simply to implement a bunch of RF islands in our city - linked to the rest of the network via Tunnels. This is the best near term approach - the equipment is cheap and this would allow some AREDN activity in the South Bay on all the maps - and make more support likely.
Let me know if you want to meet to chat.
Scott, W1MVY
--john / KC6YYG
From https://sfmap.xojs.org/ it appears there is nothing published or active yet at either Umunhum or Allison - tbd. Both sites becoming active would be a good thing/essential to provide access for much of the area. Umunhum is a challenge for the West side of the area, not because of the radar site, but simply the landscape/geography/dirt - most/all of the towers are setback from the East/NE edges of the hill, or obscured by trees, 'dirt' just below and blocking LoS to the top. So - Allison would help with valley West side access (Almaden, Los Gatos, Campbell..., while Mt U would be good for valley East side access.
Once I can get a node operational at home, it will foster and lead to gaining more experience with all of the attributes. I've got funding to work from, and incentive to leverage it, especially, hopefully to get some linked analog or Fusion or DMR systems up in other areas.
So - probably being ignorant/current of who is doing what in the South Bay - if there is a community of interest to learn with and help each other out... count me in.
Orv W6BI
Meanwhile, interim, we so far have only Black Mountain (also quite familiar with that site) as access to AREDN. I just need to acquire the appropriate equipment, do the firmware and know how to configure it at my end to make the connection.
I guess one way to express this would be to make a diagram of each path and site to be able to fill in the blanks of equipment then configuration details.
Ultimately, once familiar and more or less accomplished, then work out if it's feasible to promote and seek out other potential sites to expand into. The maps are pretty barren any presence beyond the immediate Bay Area. One of my thoughts is that if/when there is more migration to digital from analog voice modes at various sites, the potential for wanting/needing them linked/networked increases - and getting any IP to some sites from commercial sources is quite challenging.
Other than coincidence, word of mouth... interested in/suggesting that South Bay users get acquainted, Zoom, in-person, and discuss what we can do together to facilitate and support mutual interests.
Just recently updated my nodes and put them back up in the air. Got a Rocket M5 feeding a 13 dbi omni antenna at CM97ck. Channel 179, 10 Mhz B/w. Feel free to point your dish my way and see if you can see me. Antenna's up about 20ft on a pushup mast.
37.4347863,-121.8811464