The Frustrations Of Rural Internet AND Netflix

[k0ua]

Hams know that the antennas that work best are installed in the middle of winter in a snow storm. Antennas installed in the Spring or Fall in good weather just don't work right!

WØGOM

And if it stayed up over the winter, it wasn't big enough.

 

[k0ua]

I'm still not confident that ham radio would be worth the expense. I have 1500' ridges on the north and south of the house. We get one AM radio station until it cuts power at sunset, and two FM stations with very weak signals. There is a TV station 20 miles away and the signal does not exist even with a very good antenna with mast amplifier. I could get antennae up the ridges with 3000' of coax, but it just never seemed worth it. Communication is satellite dish and land line.

Okey, Dokey, if you have talked yourself out of it, fine by me,. While you location is not "ideal", for take off angle, I am telling you that on HF you would make plenty of contacts even with your 1500 foot ridges on each side. How about you have some helpful ham drive his HF mobile rig up in your driveway and make some contacts? Would you believe me then? Let me tell you just one more thing. You could spend a lifetime trying to understand all of the nuances of radio propagation. And I am not kidding. I have worked on it for nearly 50 years, and what I know would fill a thimble, and what I don't know would fill a swimming pool.

 

[cqaigy2]

A buddy of mine keeps trying to talk me into some ham gear, and i may get into it, but i have so many other hobbies getting in the way, not to mention full time job that's swamping all the available time. Oh, and the honey do list, and, well maybe when i retire. :laughing:

 

[k0ua]

A buddy of mine keeps trying to talk me into some ham gear, and i may get into it, but i have so many other hobbies getting in the way, not to mention full time job that's swamping all the available time. Oh, and the honey do list, and, well maybe when i retire. :laughing:

If you do go down that road, hopefully your friend will give you a guiding hand. A few days study and a test to get your ticket is the easy part, the hard part is building a station and that is where the real learning comes to the fore. Building a good station and learning how to operate it on what ever your chosen modes and interests are can take some time. Ham radio is not one thing. It is thousands of different things. There are so many different interests in the hobby and it is so diverse it can be difficult to decide which direction or directions you want to go. But having someone with experience to guide you will go a long way. Many get their license and so overwhelmed they wind up never doing anything.

 

[Ken]

This is still going on. It's called the Connect America Fund. The first phase was 5 years and now we are into the 2nd 5 year phase. Understand also that millions of dollars certainly doesn't go very far in the broad scheme of things. Most don't have a clue what it takes to upgrade the systems and the Government Mandate is only 10 meg so don't get all excited about anything higher than that.

We are on a private telephone co. and the money to Connect America went to building new building to hold the new equipment needed to increase the data then since new building will needed new office space upgrades and then new trucks for the men to drive. Sure am glad there is a phase 2 coming .
The data lines are buried since see the orange conduit sticking out of the ground next to the pedestal boxes. All schools are now giving the students home work requiring higher speed data. but not all kids live in the city of the school.
What does phase 2 do to speed up the putting fiber inside the buried pipe??
ken

 

[Industrial Toys]

Not even sure Netflix is worth the hassle. We tried to watch another (Five Star) Dog of a movie last night. I watched it to the end, but that was a total waste of time. Apparently Netflix has changed their business model to focus more on TV shows. It might mean going back to the Video shop in town.

 

[kcflhrc]

We are on a private telephone co. and the money to Connect America went to building new building to hold the new equipment needed to increase the data then since new building will needed new office space upgrades and then new trucks for the men to drive. Sure am glad there is a phase 2 coming .
The data lines are buried since see the orange conduit sticking out of the ground next to the pedestal boxes. All schools are now giving the students home work requiring higher speed data. but not all kids live in the city of the school.
What does phase 2 do to speed up the putting fiber inside the buried pipe??
ken

Phase 2 has been going on for at least a year for us, close to 2 now. The government mandate is minimum 10 meg for CAF. The fiber will handle just about what ever you can throw at it but it's the electronics and backbone behind the fiber that limits it. Almost all of our CAF projects are fiber to the remote and then tie onto existing copper from there.

 

[3Ts]

Did I help the situation or hurt?

You helped. But another question on dipoles about polarization (?) doesn't the antenna have to be oriented (horiontally/vertically) the same as the transmitter and parallel to the transmitter antenna? or are they all horizontal because of their size. I'm assuming the antenna has to be as high as possible above the ground due to the earth acting as a ground plane - does that matter? So I should be able to string it between 2 poles? Can I pick up AM radio stations on HAM equipment? right now, my interest is primarily listening in - i've heard there are many government programs out there for education (such as in the Australian outback farms) etc.

I probably have more questions than would be appropriate for this forum - can you point me somewhere that I can read up on antennas?

 

[B7510HSD]

Okey, Dokey, if you have talked yourself out of it, fine by me,. While you location is not "ideal", for take off angle, I am telling you that on HF you would make plenty of contacts even with your 1500 foot ridges on each side. How about you have some helpful ham drive his HF mobile rig up in your driveway and make some contacts? Would you believe me then? Let me tell you just one more thing. You could spend a lifetime trying to understand all of the nuances of radio propagation. And I am not kidding. I have worked on it for nearly 50 years, and what I know would fill a thimble, and what I don't know would fill a swimming pool.

Don't rule put putting a cross band repeater on top of that hill he could work many stations with a handheld!!

 

[B7510HSD]

You helped. But another question on dipoles about polarization (?) doesn't the antenna have to be oriented (horiontally/vertically) the same as the transmitter and parallel to the transmitter antenna? or are they all horizontal because of their size. I'm assuming the antenna has to be as high as possible above the ground due to the earth acting as a ground plane - does that matter? So I should be able to string it between 2 poles? Can I pick up AM radio stations on HAM equipment? right now, my interest is primarily listening in - i've heard there are many government programs out there for education (such as in the Australian outback farms) etc.

I probably have more questions than would be appropriate for this forum - can you point me somewhere that I can read up on antennas?

If you just want to listen in the new SDR radio's would fit the ticket! I actually Use an RSP2pro SDR receiver for my Kenwood and digital comms as it is better than the receiver in the rig!