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I worked for a chain of medical clinics in the early 2000s in Florida. Everything was going digital. We had a “remote” office across the street that didn’t hav
by etxm 9y ago
I worked for a chain of medical clinics in the early 2000s in Florida.
Everything was going digital. We had a “remote” office across the street that didn’t have internet access and it was really expensive to have lines installed.
I don’t remember what the device was called but it was some sort of satellite dish. Our network admin had ordered them and installed them on the roof tops of both buildings and we could provide access via this link.
It was pretty rad to me. But then the intermittent bugs started creeping in. The remote site used some windows 2000 dumb terminals and throughout the day all of them would disconnect at the same time - every day.
It was very random and they’d automatically reconnect after a few seconds to a few minutes - always.
Well, I was the new guy / intern grad. And so after a few weeks of debugging different things inside and moving the dishes around to make sure they were exactly pointed at each other my boss rolls into work with a beach chair and an umbrella.
I looked at him and asked if he was taking off early and hitting the beach and he goes “no you’re debugging”.
We set up the chair and umbrella on the roof. I sat up there with an walkie talkie and the remote site had the other one. My job was to sit until they radioed to see if anything was obvious interrupting the connection.
Then a semi truck stopped at the red light.
- dijit 9y agoSounds like a point-to-point directional wifi radio. They're far from a hack and have been used to great success upwards of 2miles away from each other with 1Gbps throughput, even for small ISPs.
- theyinwhy 9y agoWell, it was in the early 2000s so I doubt wireless would have given any reasonable bandwidth. Sounds more like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-space_optical_communication https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-space_optical_communica... at least that's what we had those days.
- odammit 9y agoYeah I can’t remember what it was. Someone said laser link above, I feel like it was microwave - I do remember being concerned we’d cook birds.
- ahoka 9y agoYeah, it was probably microwave.
- shakestheclown 9y agoFaster communication and cooked birds to eat, what's the downside?
- Synroc 9y agoSo if I understand correctly, the semi was tall enough that it would interrupt the signal between the two dishes on the roof?
- odammit 9y agoYeah the other building was a small one story office that was a at a lower elevation. The main building was a converted strip mall so it had a bit more height with the extra space from the drop ceilings. We ended up putting the dishes on longer poles. :)
- theyinwhy 9y agoAh, good old laser link. We had one of those. Great connection as long as there was any. Came to an end as developers startet a revolution. We went home and stated to only come back when there was a proper connection. By the end of the week the company gave in and one month later we had fibre. Those were the days :D.
- hhmc 9y agoSo what was the fix? Boosting the height?
- odammit 9y agoLonger poles. It started out on I think 18”. Pretty much enough to clear the edge of the roof of the main building. We ended up putting it on a ten foot three pole stand. That blew off during a hurricane the same year :)
- NameNickHN 9y agoThe story keeps getting better.
- errantspark 9y agoAahahaha, I work for a company that does P2P internet links over RF. When I got to > "all of them would disconnect at the same time - every day." semi truck was my first thought!
- wheelerwj 9y agothis was an awesome way to start my Sunday, thanks!
- odammit 9y agoIf you ever need a pick-me-up at my past selfs expense let me know ;) That place was full of stories!
- fahayekwasright 9y agoPoint to point networking! We serviced one that a bird occasionally sat in front of. People didn’t care if it occasionally went down.