Out here our lineman keeps a rope ladder in his bucket in case that happens.
Won't catch me climbing out of one. I'll freeze to death first! shudder marlon ----- Original Message ----- From: "RickG" <rgunder...@gmail.com> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> Sent: Monday, December 07, 2009 11:52 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] One long @#$%& day! > Praying for ya! I can identify as many here can and we feel your pain. > Below > freezing weather really sucks. I had several sessions like that last year. > One time, I had to borrow a friends bucket and it was full of water and > wouldnt drain. So I was in the ice cube filled bucket up to my knees for > about 3 hours. Not sure how I made it. The next time, the bucket was > drained > OK but the hydralics had a leak and would let me down. Thats when the snow > storm hit. After waiting for help about an hour, I decided to jump to the > rusty silo ladder about 5 feet away. I vowed to prepare for this winter. > Time will tell. Hang in there buddy! -RickG > > On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 6:49 AM, MDK <rea...@muddyfrogwater.us> wrote: > >> It's 2:30 AM... >> >> I just drove up to the house, and walked VERY fast inside. After all, >> weather.com says that it's 12 degrees and an 8 MPH wind. In their head, >> maybe. Outside of the little valley I live in, the wind's more like 25 >> mph. There's no snow on the ground. >> >> I don't make a habit of staying up late, but last night, I was doing one >> of >> those "let's just have some fun" looking around sessions on EBAY. Next >> thing I knew, it was nearly 3AM. Without shutting anything down, I just >> crawled into bed. At 8:45 my cell phone rang... I didn't answer it, >> but >> I >> did get up. Looked at my computer and Peer Monitor says... nothing is >> connected. Now, I have had some issues with one of the dist points a >> few >> miles outside of town. It had randomly locked up 3 times last week. >> Each time, I thought I had found the problem and not worried about it. >> >> The first time for instance, it was extremely dense fog, and I found the >> ventilation fan running in the box. Thinking I had sucked in too much >> damp, I just shut it off and rebooted. The locked up system is a >> mini-itx >> board and RB 14 adapter card W/4 radios... >> >> Obviously, I was wrong. Something was wrong. It had run since Friday, >> but now it's Sun AM and PM says I've been off for 3 hours. It's died 2 >> other times since the fog incident, so... Houston, we have a problem... >> >> I quick yanked on some clothes and drove up the mountain to the site, >> used >> the step ladder to get to the box lid and looked in. Restarted and >> everything went off just fine. But, it's now done this several times. >> And that's not good or right. I look in the van. Spare mini-ITX >> board, >> licensed. Spare RB14, 2 spare radios, including an XR5, just like >> what's >> up there. Anyway, morning zips by, and I have an appointment in the >> afternoon to switch a family friend's computer out for her. So, I go to >> do >> that and she's not home. That's odd. I could have sworn she said she'd >> be >> there at 2... I wanted to be home, nice and warm and setting up the new >> board so I could change in in daylight tomorrow. >> >> So, I go to the workshop and do some stuff I've been putting off and ... >> fall asleep, waiting for an OS install to finish. When I wake up, it's >> after 5. Must have slept at least 15 min... Sheesh. So, I get up, >> drive >> over to house, start the project. 30 min later, my phone beeps. Text >> message... Site's down. ARRRGGH. >> >> 25 minute drive to the site and I reboot it. Go home, pull out the >> parts >> and start to assemble the whole thing. It goes down again . Drive >> back >> up, restart. This time, nothing will coax it into running. Finally, I >> pull everything out, and take it home. Now the phone's going nuts. I >> just >> put 60 customers down. I take it home, cause it's COLD out there on the >> hillside... and everything runs flawlessly. Just to be judicious, I >> grab >> a >> config backup off of it, 'cause it's changed lately and my last backup is >> a >> few weeks old. >> >> I haul it up the mountain, put it back in place... No run. >> So, I go home, grab the spare mini-itx, use the backup config and haul it >> up >> the mountain. >> >> Won't boot. Doesn't even beep. Power comes on, but no beep. >> >> Haul it down the mountain, back home (this is .7 miles of rocky pasture I >> drive through at idle in 1st gear, then 5 miles of paved road. Takes 20 >> min >> round trip) with all the parts. Runs flawlessly. Haul it back up >> the >> mountain, plug it in, boots, but locks 5 to 60 seconds after booting. >> >> Inspect EVERYTHING (it's dark, so had to do it all by flashlight) again. >> I >> see nothing. So, I grab the spare RB14, switch the radios over and plug >> it >> in. Boots. Lights flash. Fire up the laptop and no. It's not >> working. >> log in through ethernet port... NO RADIOS DETECTED. >> >> Put old RB14 back in, change one radio. Boots up. Logs in. all >> radios >> detect, data flowing to customers. >> >> Drive home. Try to thaw out. The wind up there is 25 mph and it cuts >> like a knife through you. Log in from home and watch everything, >> suddenly >> noticed one of the ap radios has no clients. Odd. Look at config, >> looks >> ok, reset radio, clients begin to associate. As they slowly hop on, I'm >> sitting there wondering why this... and just then, PM suddenly starts >> popping up red. Sure enough. System locked. >> >> Drive up the mountain, put in second spare radio in place of XR5 and >> boot. >> (Spare XR5, was used for 2 weeks in temp site). System boots and runs >> and >> ... No link to the XR5. Try new pigtail. Dead. How strange. >> It >> worked fine just 9 days ago, and it's been stored in the ALIX board it >> was >> installed and working in all this time. >> >> As I'm sitting and watching while sitting in the van, trying to stop >> shivering with the heat on full blast, It locks up again. I reboot. >> Everything comes up, I had put the old XR5 in, and everything starts >> working - apparently it wasn't the pigtail, just the replacement XR5 that >> had no output. Waited 15 min, still running. Go home. Look at Peer >> Monitor. All Green. Suddenly, a bunch of stuff goes red, and it's >> all >> far away. Call partner. He's a whole state away, forgot he wasn't >> coming >> back from his relatives until Mon night... But the red stuff's near him. >> As is the workshop. >> >> It's now almost 11 pm. The van has almost no gas left, the nearest >> open >> gas station is 23 miles away. So, I drive to the workshop, to find out >> why on earth the shop and some other stuff was red, and everything's fine >> when I get there. Finally decided that I must have removed a routing >> statement earlier that I needed instead of the right one. Started going >> up >> the chain, looking at all the routing. No routing errors located, but >> the >> very last device before the backhaul to the site that feeds my town.... >> shows no link. I call home, son verifies... Site's down again. >> >> Said a few angry outbursts... Looked around found another new RB14, >> put >> ALL new radios in it. Determine the new RB14 doesn't look anything like >> the >> old one. Determined which slots are numbered which, so I can know which >> pigtails go where... Go to gas station, get gas. Stop at Walmart on >> the >> way back, get REALLY WARM HAT for the head, and drive back to the >> mountain. >> Somewhere in there I stopped and got junk food to eat too. Hadn't had >> food >> since 1:30 PM. Was feeling faint. That took over an hour. >> >> Drive back up the mountain, remove old RB14 and old radios, put in new. >> System wont' start now. >> >> Pull board and everyting, look at it in the light. See no problem. >> Put >> it back in, plug everything in, then I found I had bumped the "off" >> switch >> on the #$%&^ power strip. Flip switch, plug in PS, lights come on. >> >> Since no XR9 is in use now, a pigtail is wrong, so I get a new piggy and >> replace the old one with a UFL/NFBulkhead... Piggy is cold and it takes >> about 30 tries to get the UFL connector on, even tried "warming" it with >> my >> hands. Err, my hand shaped chunks of ice. It takes 3 sessions to get >> the pigtail in place on the bulkhead end. It took several to get the UFL >> end >> on. I was able to stand outside just long enough to push the threaded >> end >> through the hole. Go sit in van. Get out, get nut properly threaded. >> Get back in van. Tighten nut with fingers. Can't find tools I had >> earlier. Get in van. Finally, get out of van with gloves on, and >> hand >> tighten the n connector. Get back in van. Can't feel my hand touch my >> face. My hand can't feel the difference betwene inside the glove, in >> front >> of the incredibly hot air coming out of the heater, or touching the cold >> glass window beside me. I could not even get 2 minutes outside before >> pain >> so intense from the cold wind drove me back inside. Drive home. >> >> EVERYTHING IS UP. Oh, wait. Several sites are going >> yellow/red/yellow/green/yellow/red repeat adnauseum... >> >> So, I start looking. Finally, discover that the 3.65 backhaul has 120 >> to >> 400 ms ping times across it. Even though it's passing just 40 to 100KB >> of >> data. Restart both ends. No help. Then, I noticed that quality on >> end is zilch, but the other end is running 18 to 36 speed, instead of 54. >> Lock back faster end to 36 and pings drop to 2-8 ms. Great. Another >> bad >> XR3... This one's up on a pole, about 18 feet off the ground, on top of >> a >> hill at a wind powered site. I think it'll wait until tomorrow. >> >> Oh, wait... I ##$%%^ forgot to close the danged gate, so I drove back up >> the >> mountain. Closed gate. Wind is 5 mph stronger AT LEAST and 2-4 >> degrees >> COLDER than it was last time I was up there. The moon is pretty. >> Stars >> are awesome. I can't stand outside to admire them. >> >> Ok, the system's been up for long enough. I'm going to bed. Now it's >> 3:30 and I can't keep my eyes open. I hope I'm forgiven if I turn off >> the >> cell phone and hope to sleep in.... And I still DON"T KNOW WHICH PARTS >> ARE GOOD OR BAD!!!!!!! >> >> I'm going to have nightmares. >> >> >> >> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> WISPA Wants You! 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