Internet WiFi in the Santa Cruz Mountains (Jeff Liebermann is invited when it's done!)

Danny D. wrote, on Tue, 28 Oct 2014 20:48:36 +0000:

BTW, I created an animated GIF of the entire process, as I see it, but I > can't get Flickr to show the animations since Flickr turns an animated > GIF into a static JPG.

Here's my rendition, showing both where we are, and where we're going:

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I am omitting the actual building structure, which looks like this:

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So, below, are drawings, but not the actual pictures of us looking like fools high up in the redwood trees of the Santa Cruz mountains:

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  1. The starting point, on a steep slope, with a path near the top:
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  2. All brown lines are 16-foot long lengths of lumber:
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  3. This approximates the "ladder network" you've seen in the photos:
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  4. This was the first (thin) cable that went from tree to tree:
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  5. From that thin cable, we hung two large safety cargo nets:
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  6. Then we hung the thick cable, which was initially 250 feet long:
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  7. We sunk two fenceposts, so that the platform rested on the ground:
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  8. Then we built & suspended the first 16-foot by 10-foot section:
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  9. Yesterday, we hung the second 16-foot-long section which is a foot or two shy of the smaller redwood pair of trees:
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  10. The plan is to add successive 16-foot sections, one by one:
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  11. We keep that up until we finally reach the big redwood tree:
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  12. And, finally, we'll add 8'x4' sheets of plywood as a railing:
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    After that, we begin to build the actual treehouse, complete with WiFi, refrigerator, bar, running water, and heating (no kidding).

It will take time, of course, so, I'm not sure if I should continue to update this thread, but, since we've never done this before, any and all advice is welcome.

PS: Jeff Liebermann and SMS are both welcome to attend the Internet WiFI setup party since they both live in the area!

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Reply to
Danny D.
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Sure. Do I bring a parachute or my climbing gear?

Ummm.. wi-fi setup party? Is that like work as in a paying service call?

I dunno. The dog is smart enough not to set its paws on the deck. The people, maybe not so smart.

In about 1985, I installed a 20 meter dipole between two redwood trees on about a 45 degree sloping hillside. On installation, the dipole was quite horizontal. About 20 years later, the downhill side was about 3 ft higher than the uphill side. What happened was that trees grow vertically near the top, and outward near the bottom. The antenna tilt was caused by the difference in vertical growth rates. I sure hope the end supports of the deck are adjustable.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

My thought is "This is California, not Nevada." (Nevada is a state where you are permitted to do stupid stuff, and in fact is encouraged. California is the nanny state.)

Does that structure have a permit?

I will spare you the name dropping, but I was at a political fund raiser in Marin. They had a professionally built tree house on the property. I met the builder. Yep, all he does is build tree houses for the uber rich.

Reply to
miso

Jeff Liebermann wrote, on Tue, 28 Oct 2014 17:37:46 -0700:

I meant you'd love our wifi setup! We're currently getting 50Mbps on the 5GHz repeater!

BTW, the Ridge Wireless WISP owner wants to sell his business. Do you know anyone who would want to buy him out?

Reply to
Danny D.

miso wrote, on Tue, 28 Oct 2014 21:50:45 -0700:

Nope. It's hundreds of feet into the woods, where nobody goes, but us. :)

As you can tell from this diagram, there are three sets of trees that matter, for our purposes (although many other trees exist):

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The WiFi antenna will have a great view of all San Jose, so, if we make it big enough, we can have the pick of the town for our WiFi service! (jk)

Here's a quick look downhill, from the path near the uphill path:

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This is the uphill anchor point, on a small Monterey Pine tree:

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Here's a picture of the two small redwoods at the 1/3 point:

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Here's another picture of those small redwood trees where you can see we strung a cargo net across so we could get to the big redwood downslope:

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This cargo net is how we get over to the big redwood which is about 30 or

40 feet downslope of the beginning of the netting:
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But, I don't seem to have a picture of the big redwood for you, so, I'll need to take one and upload it so you can see how massive it is. It's about 100 feet downslope, where I don't go unless I have to, because I have to climb back up if I do. But I'll snap a picture for you.

Reply to
Danny D.

Jeff Liebermann wrote, on Tue, 28 Oct 2014 17:37:46 -0700:

Heh heh ... Jeff ... we're just like you!

We use the climbing gear all the time building this thing!

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Every time I go up these tall ladders (each section is 16 feet):

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I make sure I clip in with my ascender in the arrest position:

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I unclip, when we get to the cargo net, which is something like

50 feet up (or so) and which allows us to get to the big redwood:
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While digging the fence post holes for the treehouse, you can see that I used the ascender to prevent me from falling off the mountain as we needed two hands on the fencepost digger:

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The big redwood is really gnarly, so it's hard to climb up it:

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So, we climb up the *easy* trees, and then cross over as needed:

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We have static lines all over the place, hanging from every tree:

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We buy it cheap, at the local army/navy surplus store:

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It's useful when we hike the hills, since they're never flat:

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The kids in the Santa Cruz mountains are comfortable with ropes, as they have to use them to get around like city kids use bicycles:

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We always pack a few hundred feet in our packs, and we use the double-rope technique, so that we can take it with us when we get to the bottom:

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Of course, that assumes that there are fixed lines for wherever we want to go back up (which is, as always, the harder part):

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So, yeah, Jeff, you can bring your climbing equipment; you'll feel right at home with the rest of us!

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:)

Reply to
Danny D.

Danny D. wrote, on Wed, 29 Oct 2014 05:28:57 +0000:

I found only one picture of the big redwood, but it doesn't show how massive the trunk is (measured at 30 feet in circumference).

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There's actually a person, close to the tree trunk up there, in the cargo net, setting up the blocks of wood for the cable to go around (this picture was taken a few weeks ago).

Reply to
Danny D.

I find this all very interesting. Of course, here in Houston there's nothing even close to what you're involved in, environment-wise. In addition to the interest in all the climbing and construction, I'd like to know more about the technology of the WiFi. What is it that you're going to accomplish. Is it just reception, or are you broadcasting... I'd just like to learn more about how it works. BTW, the pictures are all great!

Reply to
Charlie Hoffpauir

Some more questions if you don't mind...

What are you, 10-20 miles from San Jose? With trees between? And I've heard that conifer leaves are hell on wiFi signals. And you're getting

50 Mbps? Is it the sheer size of the antenna that accomplishes that? And if so, is it scaleable? In other words, instead of the approximately 5 inch antenna on my router, could I replace with , say something like a 20 foot dipole and greatly extend my range?

These questions clearly indicate that I don't understand this technology, but I am very curious.

Reply to
Charlie Hoffpauir

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote, on Wed, 29 Oct 2014 10:14:57 -0500:

Jeff can probably answer the scaling question, but here is a chart my WISP provided me of the statistics of our neighborhood use BEFORE he upgraded his backhaul to 300Mbps licensed links.

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Reply to
Danny D.

Reply to
miso

I suspect there's a little more to it than finding a place in the woods "where nobody goes, but us", right? Do you own the land? If not, who does? I seem to see No Trespassing signs when I venture off road, but I haven't spent time in California so maybe it's different out there. Are there liability concerns? Given that today nobody goes there, what happens if/when your structure is discovered and becomes a destination for others? Will it be available for anyone who wants to use it?

Reply to
Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote, on Sat, 01 Nov 2014 10:29:30 -0500:

Heh heh... bear in mind that where I live, it has 40-acre zoning (which we've discussed, in the past, on alt.home.repair).

That means, if you have 79 acres, you can only build ONE house.

This guys has about 55 acres, IIRC, so, yes, it's all on private property.

And, I have quite a few acres (not that much), with nary a no-trespassing sign.

Also, *every* property out here is gated, at least the residences are fully gated. Nobody would *accidentally* stumble upon this treehouse in progress unless they purposefully trespassed.

Since I know the area rather well, I *could* get to the treehouse from the hard direction (read, bottom of the hill); but that would necessitate quite a vigorous climb, as the photos posted prior show the steep greater than 45 degree topography).

So, while it's an attractive nuisance, it's a well gated, well hidden, fully private attractive nuisance that you'd have to go out of your way to find if you didn't know where it was.

Reply to
Danny D.

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