Internet outages the past 24 hours in the Mossel Bay area. Telkom, MTN and Vodacom experienced several outages in the past 24 hours. The latest early this morning.
In short: Power Outage - No big deal. The GRHub Network including the RF Links just switch over from mains power to battery power. Internet Outage - The only real drawback is that all connections to "outside" nodes are dropped leaving the network operational only in the Southern Cape area. Current Internet outage is not a train smash and I am working on bringing AREDN and WINLINK back on line should all else fails. The importance of Repeaters, RF Simplex Links, Cross Band Repeating etc. cannot be underestimated. The GRHub will in future be linked to more RF links. The current 145.550 Mhz link works well. I also have a UHF link radio on 433.400 Mhz coupled to the 49355 node but currently not switched on. I need to buy another Diamond X50 Antenna for the UHF band. I hope to have the UHF RF link operational before the December holiday season.
Like they say Rome was not build in one day. Those who have experience in building RF and AllStar networks will know this all to well.
Finally: I like a challenge and with Power- and Internet Outages comes new challenges and problems that need to be solved. Each new installation/alteration brings satisfaction and fulfillment. No problem is to big to overcome in life. Giving up is NEVER and option or the easy way out!
