Day 42-44 Rattlesnakes, rockslides, volcanoes and other WISP dangers

Day 42 took the Roadshow to Kelseyville, California. Kelseyville is a small town nestled at the feet of Mount Konocti. Mount Konocti is a volcano in Lake County, California and at 4,305 feet it is the second tallest peak in the Clear Lake Volcanic Field. Mount Konocti is also the home of AirLink Wireless' main tower, located at the peak of this inactive volcano. Now, to be clear, I must use the term inactive loosely. Why? Well, it is had to call the volcano inactive when lava tubes located at the top of the mountain expel steam but that's another story.

AirLink is owned by a very nice lady named Denise and operated by her and one technician, Kyle.

With a few hundred customers, operating a WISP on the top of a volcano, in an area filled with rattlesnakes, where bandwidth is sold by the carriers for a kings ransom, let's just say their days are challengingng. My mission sounded simple: Help them clan up a few towers that had been expanded organically over time, roved some redundancy at the head end of the network and provide an overall assessment of improvements that could be made to ensue their continued growth and success/ Sounds simple right? Did I mention the rattlesnakes yet? Oh yea, continuing. Working there for three days, I learned many things about operating a WISP in a "hostile" environment like this, after all, my WISP is in central/east Texas where the tallest natural feature is a fifty foot pine tree.

With so many new lessons learned and so many interesting experiences, I have been thinking for several days how to best present here in my blog.

So, I have decided to simply make a list of experiences and here it is.

1. Their main POP (point of presence) is atop Mount Konocti. From atop the mountain you can see as far away as the Sierras near Lake Tahoe and all the way north to Mount Shasta. WOW! That in itself is unbelievable, a 250 mile view.

2. Operating atop a mountain has many challenges, number one being access. To get to the top of the mountain requires a four wheel drive truck (I affectionately call "the goat") and lots of gate unlocking to keep out the locals who all believe there something magical up there on the forbidden mountain (and there is, it's called a magical view). Half way up is a family that lives in a solar powered home with a water tank outside. Once a week they have to go to town for water. That's extreme. Going up the mountain is nearly a half day affair so you have to take everything you can think of up there which requires a trailer. Remember gravity, that thing that tries to keep the truck from going up the mountain? Well, it has about the same pull on that trailer so the ride up is, well, exciting to say the least. Did I mention the road is barely wide enough for the goat, there's no guardrails and the drop on the side of the road is about 2000 feet in most places? This is an extreme WISP.


2. Power. On the top of the mountain there is none, unless you generate it yourself. With tons of sunshine solar is the way to go, but with indy nights and cloudy snow days, wind is also an option but Denise and Kyle have yet to found a wind generator that will survive these winds at 4000 feet. I was skeptical when they told me that until they showed me their lat wind turbine with stubs for blades. I should have taken a picture.


3. Snakes. Rattlesnakes in fact, the worst of the snake family in my opinion. With their creepy little heads and the scary rattle, these things are prehistoric and mean. The sound they make is nothing like you hear in the movies. Obviously, in movies the rattlers are some guy shaking a baby rattle but when you hear the real thing it is a buzz, like those little windup toys kids get from McDonalds that you wind up and they run about three feet across the floor, a buzzzzz nor a rattle rattle. Just a short burst to say "I am going to inject you with a deadly venom that will cause extreme pain and paralysis before you can drive the goat down that treacherous mountain and open all those locked gates if you don't stop throwing rocks at me" kind of buzz. Driving up the mountain the last day here, we ran over one of these buggers and he donated his 9 button rattle as a souvenir for me (sorry PITA members). His loss my gain. At the peak next to the equipment shack is a nest of rattlers so when we get up there the first thing we do is toss rocks into the nest and watch them all buzz away. Actually I think only the little ones leave and the momma is still hiding in there waiting for us to turn our backs. Very disturbing…

4. Mountains. They are everywhere and having your main POP atop a 4,000 footer doesn't ensure service to everyone so you have to make lots of mini-pops, or repeater sites to fill in the holes. Sometimes, these aren't so bad like this one next to a pool at a beautiful home atop another nearby mountain. I spent about two hours sitting under a palm tree and doing some "configuration", a.k.a., resting and enjoying the view when Denise wasn't looking. :-) This was definitely the easiest wireless tower I have ever worked on.

5. Everything here is volcanic or the result of a volcano. The mountains are there because of the volcanos, the rocks are volcanic, there's volcanic glass everywhere called obsidian, there's lava, lava tubes, piles of lava rock thrust up from the center of the earth out in the middle of grass fields that totally don't belong. In fact, there's a power generating station on a nearly volcano where they pump water into the ground and it comes back as steam to drive a generator. Wow, that's real power. Kyle tells that on Mount Konocti, when it rains the water runs into the mountain not down the mountain. Where does inexactly go? No one knows but indian lore says theres a hidden lake inside the mountain with fish that don't have eyes. I believe it. Bottom line: AirLink is an extreme WISP and they do a great job of what they do and face each day's challenges so they can enjoy views like these. Not too shabby.