Lake Havasu City and Mohave County Arizona are the western hub in Arizona for AREDN. We have been building about two years. It's in the 120° range now so most outside work is in planning stage. Here is where we are and where we are going:
We have eight to twelve 5.8GHz nodes all on the top channel - 184, with 10 MHz bandwidth. This puts us just below 6GHz.
Mohave County is the fifth largest county geographically, in the US, which extends from Boulder Dam at Vegas to St. George, UT, and down to about 40 miles east of Kingman to near Parker to the south. With a small network for now, we do not need to segment.
- I get a tunnel from Keith AI6BX in Redlands, CA, which connects us to the world.
- Our equipment is almost entirely Ubiquiti. Since it is on 5.8 GHz, there is no old equipment, though we have some boat anchors in boxes.
- I have a RasPBX for meshphone here in LHC (928 3001). My PowerBeam M5 points toward Crossman Peak, which is the high point around here at 4800'. Lake level is about 700', so Rocket + 120° Sector bathes the area in signal, perhaps as far as Parker to the South and Needles toward the North.
- On Crossman we have the Rocket + Sector, and an RPi with camera and temp detectors. The cam just watches the container doors and records motion. W7DXJ's APRS node lives there, too. One of our three Yaesu System Fusion DR2x repeaters is there with "fancy" antenna. (The other two DR2x are at a fire station and the Police Station (Primary EOC)).
- In an amazing bit of luck, the highest home in LHC belongs to a local ham, Nick W7NRX, which is directly in line with my signal to Crossman. We have another Rocket + 120° Sector there from which several nodes join the mesh.
- Dick W7DXJ has a powerBeam M5, as do Tom K7TJH and Jerry K7LY. Each has a mesh phone.
- Steve K7SWF has a NanoStation Loco.
- We have a Rocket + Omni at a Fire Station which is the city Secondary EOC, with a WiFi AP so folks can use the mesh if the Internet is down. A weather station + APRS node is going in there when it cools a skosh. I had 122.5° at the house yesterday - not working on any roofs!!!
- A couple of other guys are ready to install nodes in the fall.
- I have three GoKit nodes - a NanoStation M5, Rocket + Omni, and a Power Beam M5, plus two mesh phones. Tom K7TJH has a GoKit with Rocket + Omni.
- I am working on a Winlink Express on RPi, and an APRS on Rpi this long hot summer.
Next Steps:
- I am a member of Cactus Intertie, which has sites on mountain tops all over the west to NM and TX, and we plan to have a bigger dish, probably on 5.8GHz, but another Ham channel, pointing to Guadalupe, which is 10 mi east of Quartzsite. @ Guadalupe we will have "the other end" of the Crossman link. I might need a node in the middle as Guad appears occluded from Crossman. From Guad, we plan to feed Quartzsite (QuartzFest), another RF link to the west to tie in with Palm Desert nodes, and another feeding RF East toward PHX, Wickenburg, etc.
- I can't get south to Yuma from there, so probably they'll get a feed from another node betwixt Palm Desert and Guadalupe. Keith AI6BX and Andre Hansen K6AH are partners in a node or two in the desert.
- When the RF to global AREDN is done the tunnel becomes a backup.
- Our ARES is part of city and county EM plan, and County would deploy us to a site a few miles from first I-40 Exit in AZ in case of big earthquake in Cali. We plan to have an AREDN node there, pointing at Crossman Peak, but will probably need another node in the middle. We haven't done a site survey.
- We have invite from San Bernardino County Sheriff to put a node in Needles, and may put another across the Colorado River from LHC on a tower. No site surveys yet.
- We would like to extend AREDN to Bullhead City and Kingman to cover the cities in the county.
Hope this helps, 73 Charlie KØTAN
Landline: 928 302 1821
Mesh: 928 3001
