My name is Ben and I am the youngest member of the Tbird team. I thought I would start my blog by cleaning up some misconceptions about networking, speeds, and the good old “Intro-net.” 

Lets start with the basics. The first thing about networking that everyone needs to know is the difference between MB’s and

We were out doing installs at Aspen today and everything was moving along just fine when suddenly...nothing happened.

We were as mystified as you are.

Our gear just stopped passing traffic. Unfortunately we were doing an install at the time so we spent a good hour troubleshooting the install untill we were finally able to track it back to the relay. Right about that time the hail turned to snow. We started replacing wires, switches, power supplies, anything we could think of we replaced and still no luck.As it turned out the radio that brings the main link into Aspen got too cold and the internal heater was not keeping up. I adjust the thermostat settings and we now have the system back online :) We go back to the location tomorrow to move the radio into a heated area, away from exposure to the elements. It set us behind schedule on a couple installs and delayed our Lake Bosworth test, but we will be caught up by early next week. I'm just glad we were able to f ...

Looks like it's time for another Thunderbird Update :)

Tomorrow (Friday) afternoon we are doing a survey at Lake Bosworth for a possible repeater station that would allow us to service the entire lake shore. This is great news for the Bosworth community, since there is no form of broadband available there at the moment. I'll post a follow-up with the results of the survey this weekend for those of you that are waiting.

Aspen is coming along perfec ...

Thats right, the Aspen community of Tulalip/Marysville is now online! We pulled a -75 dbi link with 3ms latency off the tower, 17 miles to the Point of Prescence, with a 2' parabolic grid antenna (lovingly nicknamed "The BBQ".) The 5.8Ghz Line of Sight link pulls a steady 7-8meg down and 5-6 meg up link.

That link then connects into the back of a 2.4Ghz 802.11b radio with a 15dbi omni to redistribute the backhaul link to the neighborhood. Ben grabbed some snapshots with his camera and will upload them when he gets back from his vacation next week.

Dennis and I go out tomorrow morning to test range on the client radios from the POP. I'll post results this weekend.

Special thanks goes out to Don for letting us locate on his property.

Regards,

Aaron

We took a property tour with the owner of the land for the potential tower location. The location is perfect as far as radio waves are concerned. It would give us direct line of sight to Lake Alyson, Canyon Drive, Mountain Loop, Pilchuck Tree Farm Road and most of Jordan and Arlington. The bad news is that there is no current way to get there other than Helicopter or Motorcycles. We need to find the forest service roads and easments that lead up to the ridge top and then get keys and such. We think there may also be a way up from the other side, but haven't found that yet on the maps. If we can gain physical access to the area it would be worth building out a tower with a weatherproof equipment box and solar power (since there is no power at the mountain top.) I will continue to keep you all posted on progress as we move forward.

The "Aspen" development in the Tulalip/Marysville area gets built out tomorrow (2/16/07). We have a number of customers waiting to be installed ...

Just a quick update, since it's late and I'm fighting a cold.

Tucson is coming along well. Bill has found a location for the antenna array and is tracking down a solid backhaul provider now. I will continue to update you all as things progress there.

Tomorrow we are driving up to scout a possible tower/relay station on the ridge north of Granite Falls, near the SERS tower. The location would allow us to pick up a few isolated areas like Canyon Road, Lake Alyson and the Pilchuck Tree Farm area west of Lake Bosworth. It would also provide better coverage to the Airpark and other surrounding areas. We will see how it turns out and keep you posted.

Regards,

Aaron

We have received a few calls from a large community on the Tulalip land in Marysville requesting high speed service, so we went out there today to scout and plan the network. A few locations there in the "Aspen" development have a good shot to our tower, so we decided to try and find the best location to bring in the main internet backhaul and set up the Hotspot/Relay. We found a couple of great locations and have made arrangements with one of them to host the system that will service the area. Apparently the only service available in the community is from Clearwire, and thier coverage is sparse at best.

We should have the new network in place by Tuesday, and will be able to bring customers online at that point. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that we will be able to bring another 100+ households out of the dark ages.

For the c ...

Ours jaws dropped today when we finished building out a custom Hotspot/Relay system for a residential client that could not get direct signal from our tower. We needed to bring the signal in from about a half mile away (a little more than 2000 feet,) and then send it wireless to our customer’s home. We were able to sit on the front porch and surf the internet with just a laptop from a 1/2 mile away. The speed test came in at 8 Meg per second for upload and download. We went ahead and set up a wireless bridge at the customer’s house to reduce the signal to a wired connection, but the fact that our laptop could surf at top Thunderbird speeds from that far away just boggled the mind. The new commercial class equipment we are using is phenomenal!

Typical range on WiFi hotspot gear is about 50 feet indoors and 200 feet outdoors. The link we set up was ten times that distance, through light trees. I can't wait to start deploying this equipment in the towns we service and just create one ...

It all started in the spring of 2005. We found our dream home; a beautiful craftsman home on 5+ wooded acres just outside of Granite Falls. We were attracted to the friendly, open community, the excellent schools, the privacy, and of course a price that couldn't be beat. I was assured by the real estate agent that there were multiple options for high speed internet available at the home and was even told that the previous owner had cable service. This was a huge factor for us, as my wife and I are both internet professionals. I had an internet business with offices in Bellevue and my wife was doing advertising and marketing work for a number of high profile clients from home. In addition, we were just starting up a new interactive marketing firm that would rely heavily on reliable high speed internet service.

Many of you know how the rest of the story goes, because you went through the same thing. We moved in and started calling the internet "providers" in the area. Afte ...

Welcome to the first day of the rest of my Blog. My name is Aaron Sallade and I am an Internet Addict one of the founding members of Thunderbird Broadband. This Blog is where I intend to share my trials, tribulations and thoughts, as they pertain to Thunderbird Broadband. I will try to post every few days with an update or anecdote, and for posterity's sake, I may even go back and enter some historical accounts of what led us here today.

It should be noted that I am neither a master gramatician nor a notable speller (sp?) and may occassionaly make errors that would insult a third grader. I might even inpurposely invent a word or two. Please just humour me and read along as though I know what I'm doing, it will keep me out of therapy.

If you find this Blog and have no idea what "Thunderbird Broadband" is, please go to the http://www.thunderbirdbroadband. ...