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TEST AND EVALUATE MICROWAVE TECHNOLOGY:
In 2005, we tested and evaluated available microwave radio technology and
products to determine if 802.11g (54 Meg/second) radios are technology feasible
and cost effective.
The Broadband department working with the Tribal IT department installed, tested
and verified 802.11g microwave radios and verified 802.11g technology does
perform reliably. The entire Coeur d’Alene tribal wireless network was
changed from the existing and older 802.11b (11 Meg/second) system to a newer
and faster 802.11g (54 Meg/second) network. This established a working
fully functional proof-of-concept that 802.11g microwave radios will perform
reliably in large quantity deployments over a vast area. The decision was
then made to build the wireless microwave broadband system on 802.11g (54 Meg)
technology instead of the older and more popular 802.11b (11 Meg) technology.
The final results of our testing 802.11g (54 Meg/second) technology radios
resulted in our decision to utilize Vivato 802.11g microwave Base-Station radios
for high density and long distance distribution points.
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Above is one of our outdoor Vivato 802.11g radios
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Tower Construction
Tower construction – road work:
Road work was one of the first projects needing to be completed prior to tower
construction. The Plummer-Butte road needed to be widened and leveled to
allow heavy equipment to access the top of the mountain.
The Plummer-Butte’s three mile long road needed to be leveled, widened and
brushed to allow heavy construction equipment to access the Plummer-Butte
mountain top.
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Plummer-Butte road being worked on to widen the road
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Worley T574 needed a road to the top allowing heavy equipment to access the top
of the T574 hill.
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Worley T574 – New road for tower construction equipment access
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Tower construction – core samples:
Core samples at Plummer-Butte and Worley T574 microwave tower sites were
required to engineer the microwave tower foundations. Core samples were
drilled to a depth of 30 feet at both primary tower locations. The core
samples are then sent to a geotech lab to determine the type of tower foundation
needed to support the structure and weight of the microwave tower.
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Left – A tracked core drilling rig. Right – core drilling samples
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A tracked core-drilling rig was brought in to access the tower sites. At
this time, the ground is still soft and a heavy truck or crane will sink into
the ground and get stuck.
All microwave towers must have core-drilling samples made. The results
from the core drilling samples determine the design required to adequately
support the foundation of the tower. A tower foundation does not only
support the weight of a tower, itadditionally holds the tower in place during
high winds, which create up-lift pressures on legs. When storm winds push
on a 3-leg self-supporting tower, two legs take the entire weight of the tower
while a third leg is lifted into the air. A properly engineered tower
foundation uses information from core samples to determine what the earth can
support.
Tower construction – Underground Electrical:
Both Plummer-Butte and Worley T574 microwave tower locations need electrical
power installed. A first step in laying underground power is the pre-rip
stage. Heavy equipment cuts a three to four foot deep trench in the ground
the entire distance where new underground power will be installed. The
pre-rip procedure makes the actual installation of underground conduits & power
much easier because the ground has been pre-cut. Additionally, a pre-rip
is necessary to locate hard rocks which would require additional rock cutting
equipment.
 Equipment above is pre-ripping underground
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The Plummer-Butte pre-rip encountered about one hundred yards of rocks which
required a heavy duty rock cutting wheel to be brought in for pre-trenching.
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Rock cutter above is cutting a four foot deep trench for cable
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Although the rock cutter pictured above spins the cutting wheel at almost 30
MPH, the hard rocks delayed underground power installation of conduits almost
two weeks.
The gray fiber optic conduit from Plummer-Butte crosses the road by A366.
The conduit is drilled horizontally under the road. Because the road is
not dug-up, there is less maintenance needed for road care after the conduit is
installed.
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Horizontal drilling machine
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After pre-trenching is completed, underground conduits are plowed into the
pre-trenched ditches.
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Heavy equipment installing underground conduits
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When heavy equipment is plowing underground conduits, the equipment can’t backup
when it encounters rocks. Pre-ripping enables the underground conduits to
be installed without problems because a known tested pre-ripped path is used.
Our conduits are buried at the following depths (on Plummer-Butte):
- Two feet – A warning marker ribbon
- Three feet – Gray conduit for fiber optic cable
- Four feet – Red conduit for power (7,000 volts)
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Marker ribbon with red and gray conduits
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The marker ribbon serves as warning to any person digging in the future.
Encounter a warning marker ribbon; stop digging because you are feet from
thousands of volts in electrical power.
After all underground conduits were installed; The KEC 7,000 volt electrical
power wires were pulled through the underground red conduits. Both
Plummer-Butte and Worley T574 had electrical meter basses installed.
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Plummer-Butte meter base (six-pack)
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Plummer-Butte has a six-pack meter base installed. This type of meter base
allows electrical outlets and meters for five additional electrical clients at
Plummer-Butte. The Gateway Fire Department will be the second KEC electric
customer at Plummer-Butte. The remaining four meters (electrical
connections) are reserved to attract potential cell phone co-location companies.
At this time, we know there is interest from Verizon, AT&T and Singular
for co-location on the Broadband towers.
Tower construction – foundation boring:
A tracked drilling rig begins drilling tower foundations on Plummer-Butte and
Worley T574 locations. This foundation has been engineered from the
previous core samples made several months ago.
Our microwave tower foundations consist of a micro-pile design. In
summary, our microwave tower foundations are essentially a 30 foot hole with a 4
inch threaded pipe placed in the hole then the remaining empty area is filled
with grout. This results in an extremely strong foundation.
Interestingly, the micro-pile foundation for the microwave towers appears to
look similar to a common (water) well. The micro-pile hole is then filled
with grout and a 1-foot diameter round threaded nut is screwed down on the
micro-pile. Each tower utilizes three micro-pile foundations. The
micro-pile foundations must be level, a ¼ inch off (to low or high) would result
in the top of our towers leaning four inches. Our towers do not lean in
any direction because the micro-pile work was checked many times to ensure a
solid level foundation.
Tower construction – tower components begin to arrive:
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September 13th 2005 – the first shipment of tower components
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September 13th is the first of tower shipments to arrive. It is
clear that fall has arrived. The fog delays the truck driver until he can
safely drive from Coeur d’Alene to Plummer. This shipment of tower components
consists of 20-foot tower legs.
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Unloading tower components while not destroying trees in the process
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The tower components are transported to the Worley T574 and Plummer-Butte tower
locations. The pictures above are the semi-truck delivering the shipment
to the Worley T574 tower location. Please note we have made efforts not to
destroy trees and to attempt to keep the natural scenery of the environment
where possible.
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10/24/2005 – The first 20-foot leg is bolted in place.
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Above, the first 20-foot leg of a three leg 120-foot tower is erected and bolted
into place on the Worley T574 tower site.
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Fall conditions begin to turn roads into mud slides
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The image above is the wet clay road to the Worley T574 tower site. When
this road gets wet, the road is slick as ice. A 30 MPH run up the hill to
make it to the top results in a dangerous 30 MPH uncontrolled slide back down
the hill. The tower construction crews are forced to chain up all four
tires on their four-wheel-drive to make it to the top. Additional tower
equipment must be pushed or pulled up by bulldozer.
Fortunately, the Broadband staff is able to utilize their tracked vehicle and
safely drive to the tower locations. Otherwise, we would have been walking
in the mud and rain up the hills or mountains.
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Muddy roads force the use of a dozer to push tower equipment up to tower sites
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Above, Nick Parker – a T.E.R.O. registered contractor has sub-contracted with
the tower contractor to provide labor, equipment and assistance in many aspects
of tower construction. Above, Nick is pushing our utility building up the
hill to the T574 tower location.
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Utility building get delivered – tower is at 60 feet and rising
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The utility building was color picked to be a dark green. This was decided
to best hide the building around the surrounding green trees. Above, the
tower is now 60 feet tall and has another 60 feet to go up higher still.
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Winter sets in and towers need to be wired for equipment
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The Plummer-Butte microwave tower was erected in the early stages of winter with
off and on snow at the top of Plummer-Butte.
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The above pictures show typical winter snow & ice conditions on the microwave
towers
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Plummer-Butte 120-foot tower covered in ice
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A 30-degree day in Plummer often means a sub-zero wind-chill day on
Plummer-Butte. During the above pictured trip, we are working in the
utility building to configure our communication equipment.
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Worley Long House microwave antenna
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The above image is a picture of the Worley Long House microwave dish (lower
round object) which communicates to a similar dish on the Worley T574 microwave
tower. The data is then relayed to the Plummer-Butte microwave tower which
is then relayed to the tribal head quarters in Plummer, which is then
transported by fiber optic cable to the NOC server room where a hand-off is
delivered to the IT department.
Broadband coverage areas:
The following image, illustrates the potential line-of-site coverage area from
our two primary microwave towers (T574 and Plummer-Butte) and the Worley Long
House 40-foot/60-foot relay tower:
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Potential line-of-site coverage to clients
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The above line-of-site coverage map does not indicate the 5 mile maximum
distance we are limiting our clients to. Any clients beyond 5 miles radius
distance from a tower may be subject to weak connections, which are prone to
running slow and periodic disconnections.
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