It was cold and snowy this past Saturday with Sunday being just plain cold but the teams assembled and accomplished a lot.
Saturday we all gathered at the new Midland tower site which is just southwest of the city of Midland. When the crews had finished for the day they installed three x 2’ Dishes, one x 2.397Ghz PtMP AP, 5.9Ghz PtMP AP, PTZ Camera, Routers, and Mi5 DMR repeater. The first three dishes were installed at 275’ and are pointing to our Saginaw/Harris site ( 19.146 Miles ), Pinconning site (26.183 Miles), and Shepherd site (18.84 Miles). As we had already installed the gear on Saginaw/Harris a crew went over after we had the initially established link peaked at -70dBm to bring it to a final signal of -52dBm. The other two links are waiting for their site vist’s to install gear to bring them online. Now that we had the network connectivity up we were able to bring the new Mi5 DMR repeater online. The site has a commercial UHF antenna combiner system and tuning was completed to allow its use for this machine. 443.9500 is the pair configured for this site and that is the same as our MTC repeater. So if your radio already has Mt.Clemens then it has the new Midland Mi5 machine. Installed also at 275’ is the 2.397/5.9ghz PtMP access points. These are running our standard Mikrotik NV2 configuration and client configs can be accessed from the menu on our website. A PTZ camera was also installed on the tower and snapshots are also available on our website above.
We still have two more PtP links to install at the site and more site cleanup planned but for the first day of work at the site, lots were accomplished by all. A special thanks to Max, KE8DON for providing dinner for the hard workers late into the night. Everybody appreciated the warm food after the cold and snowy work.
Sunday the team moved its attention to the Mayville2 site. Mayville2 is only 760 meters from Mayville1 but the height above ground level is significant enough for the effort to move our DMR and Analog UHF machines over which is what we are happy to report was completed. The photos speak for themselves in the work the teams put into the sites to make things as clean and professional as possible.
Sunday wasn’t just a day for work in Mayville but the team also made a visit to our new Cass City site. Mi6 connectivity had been established to the Cass City site via a 25.84 Mile PtP link to Mayville2 from prior site work but this visit was to install another new Mi5 machine. 442.0875 is the pair assigned to this site which is the same as our Lansing and Hackleburg sites. So if those sites are in your radio the new Cass City site is also in your radio. With all the prep work the teams have done the installation took less than 25 minutes from arrival to mounting the gear and powering it up and checking it.
We would like to thank the following people who helped at either site or both sites this past weekend. It’s all of us working together that we are able to accomplish everything and without you all it wouldn’t be possible. In no particular order as always
Courtney, No call yet
Dan, W2PUT
Dan, No call yet
Dave, N8ERL
Jack, K8GTG
Jeff, KB8SWR
Ken
Max, KE8DON
Michelle, KC8UMO
Paul, KC8ELQ
Randy, N8VDS
Ron, KC8YVF
This will more than likely be our last post of site work till after Christmas and New Years has passed but don’t tell the chairman that. We the CMN Directors and Members just wanted to take this moment to say Merry Christmas to you and your family. 2022 has been one heck of a year for everybody and 2023 has even more fun ahead for us. Items may be getting checked off lists but the funny thing is we get to keep adding to the list as we continue to grow and build this beautiful network for all of those in this great State of Michigan.