Location: Historic Mississippi Business District
Scribe: RussellSenior
We all convened at a little after 11 am at the Fresh Pot. From there, we crossed the street to 4008 N Mississippi (NAYA) and got to work.
4008 N Mississippi
Even though the weather was drier this time (with occasional brief showers), I was still too chicken to climb on this roof. Several others went up, carrying the non-pen roof mounts and antennas. Pretty early on, we encountered the problem of how do get the cinderblocks (MichaelWeinberg says they are about 25lb each) onto the roof. Getting them up via the ladder seemed excessively dangerous and/or difficult, so I took off to get a rope (bought a 30m 8mm from Oregon Mountain Community on Sandy Blvd). I was also asked to get some nuts and lock-washers to mount the 5GHz antennas, so I stopped off at Beaumont Hardware (roughly 43rd & NE Fremont) and got a dozen or so of each.
Tyler, Michael and I unloaded 8 cinderblocks from the StepHouse van into the community garden north of NAYA and I successively tied the cinderblocks on to the end of the doubled rope as they were hauled hand-over-hand onto the roof. That short section of exterior wall is the only practical place to hoist equipment since it is the only place without a bevelled tile section at the top. Two of the Metrix boxes were configured, but we were missing some of the mounting hardware (still in Michael's basement), so the rest of the day got scrubbed. We got another peek into the ceiling but did not see any light from roof vents. Those on the roof report seeing vents from there. Turns out the drier vent doesn't go to the roof, it just dumps out in the ceiling space. I proposed we fish an ethernet cable in from the roof with some reflective tape and see if we can: a) spot it; and b) fish it over to the laundry closet.
3725 N Mississippi
- Michael, Tyler, (?name?) and I (this ladder is *much* less scary) got on the Mississippi Commons roof, hauled up another 8 cinder blocks in a bucket brigade and another non-pen roof mount. We found an electrical outlet installed on one of the air-conditioners or heaters on the roof. I am not sure we can use that on a permanent basis, but it ought to at least come in handy for testing. There are roof vents into the ceiling space, however in most locations inside, the ceiling is sheetrocked, so access to the ceiling space is dodgy. That needs more investigation. If we can use the roof outlets, that problem goes poof.
We are planning to meet again on Monday (June 6) evening at MichaelWeinberg's to shake out the hardware in comfort. Maybe get them up on the roofs later this week. We didn't have time to make any progress on the yet-to-be-determined northern roof.