Sylmar Hang Gliding Association

With the establishment of a real street address on Gridley, we've reached yet another milestone today regarding our telecommunications infrastructure.

Today, Time Warner pulled a cable from the entrance of our property to the equipment board where the current electronics equipment is located next to our oldest storage box.

That cable is going through the 3" conduit that others, long before many of us joined the SHGA, put in place. Thanks to them over designing for future capacity, the cable pull, even though hitting a few snags along the way, was successful.

This is a very important development towards the next phase of getting broadband internet into the SHGA property and out of the Windsports house.

To date, thanks to Joe Greblo allowing us to piggyback off of his cable account, we've had OK wireless connectivity over the last two years. Actually we had it for longer than that, but about 2 years ago, we put SHGA on it's own cable modem so our internet would not effect Windsports or the Kagel Cam.

This coming Thursday, Time Warner will come out to hook up the cable to the Time Warner infrastructure. We will have the internet up in the LZ about a week after that, in time for the Spring Air. The type of service we're getting will open up a host of other opportunities because of the increased bandwidth, scheduled to be 100Mb down, and 20 Mb up.

Cost will remain the same as it has been over the last two years, $20 for two years worth of internet. We need to have about 30 pilots contribute to meet our goal. The more we have contributing, the longer your $20 will go. So if we get about 60 pilots to contribute, we might be able to extend it to 3.5 - 4 years. If you are so inclined, you can also increase your "donation" for WiFi maintenance/improvement fund. So far this year we've purchased a new Docsis Cable modem that increased our internet reliability and bandwidth. I'm planning on adding "N" support for 802.11 N (100Mb WiFi). We are already supporting 802.11 G (54Mb WiFi). Pilots have been generous with that increase support in the past. I think the improvements your likely to see in the next few weeks will be "illuminating".

Potentially, we'll finally explore internet capable security cameras and maybe finally a whack cam. I know Dayna Chipman would love to see an Owl Box cam if we could swing it. See here for an example.

I'll keep you all up to date on any further progress as it happens. I like to publically thank Jay for supervising the Time Warner technicians today and showing them where the current infrastructure was located. And of course Joe Greblo for the support he has given us regarding WiFi in the LZ.

I want to also recognize Sebas and Phill for the work they did on the installing the conduit from the green box in front of the Gazebo patio to the electronics equipment board.

The cable from that green box to the equipment board barely fit, but it definitely was the part that made the last few feet worth it. Without it we wouldn't be in as good of shape.

You guys are awesome, thanks for your proactive designing!

Put me down for $50

Well done to all involved. Our club, all its members and our facilities kick ass, hard....

Thanks Chippy! This is great news. I really appreciate all your effort and knowledge. You can count me in for a donation.

Wow, that's great. Where do we send money, can we use the club's paypal account?

Terry, Check out the home page news section re: Pay Pal payments. Follow the instructions and be sure to note that the payment your making is for the Internet Communications fund. Then, SHGA will reimburse Chippy. Katherine or Jay can assist if you have questions or need further information.

Until such time as I turn over the WiFi reigns to the SHGA, paypal to my account will be preferable. This way there is a record of those who payed. You can always give it to me in the LZ as well.

You'll "know" when to pay up when you get an email from me. The first round already went out in March to those that joined the wireless 2 years ago. I'm trying to do that on the anniversary of your original donations to make it fair to all of the pilots that joined later.

I'm sure we'll get enough donations to cover the full 2 years. Jay as you may know, or may not be aware, is paying half of the yearly fee which is basically subsidizing everyone else. But he will be the greatest beneficiary to our increased bandwidth (can you say Netflix subscription?).

I'm not going to relocate the WiFi until next week since I'm going to an F3K (discus launch glider) comp this weekend. I just do not want to interrupt service until I can dedicate a whole day to getting everything just right.

Once we get everything in place, I'll meet with the BOD and see about getting them to take over the billing, hopefully tied to your membership anniversary.

The Paypal address is: REMOVED because of BOTS

Remember to select "send to friends and family" or SHGA is charged a fee.

For now, let's follow Jeff's direction and use payment method(s) he suggests. As Jeff points out, he's handling this project and has been for years. At some point he'll have a discussion with the BOD but until then... this is his "baby."

Member dues and glider storage payments can go through the SHGA Pay Pal account. Sorry if my suggestion to Terry inserted any confusion.

Ooops my bad! Completely misread it and just sent a payment to SHGA. I'll request that Jay forward it to Jeff.

Yes, I'm the one that removed the email address from the post Mike put up about the paypal address. I did this to prevent BOTS from spamming the email address that was posted.

Please refrain from posting email addresses in the body or subject of any posts please. Those managing the email and paypal accounts will be very appreciative.

Just got a phone call from Time Warner and they'll be out tomorrow to hook us up to the "grid"

I'll do some preliminary testing that "may" take down the SHGA LZ wireless for a few hours. If all goes well, maybe I'll get it hooked up. I had planned on them coming on Thursday which would not have given me enough time to complete the other configurations I need to do, but with them showing up earlier, we may just be able to get it done.

More tomorrow.......

Well, much to my surprise, yesterday on the way home, Jay calls me and says that Time Warner is there and hooking up the cable to the grid. By the time I arrive, they're about done, and in short order they completed the job.

So I plan on being out there this afternoon and testing the connection with the cable modem. We have enough access points to handle both "N" & "G" wireless devices. So no new equipment will likely be needed.

I believe we'll need to have the NEMA equipment box wired to a circuit breaker but that should be about it once the docsis modem is enabled.

On Thursday last week I spent most of the afternoon getting everything up and running. Time warner came back out and troubleshot the internet weak signal back to their entry point into the property, so at least the cable run was good.

Once we got good signal, speeds directly on the router were very good 107mb/s down and 10mb/s up. Wireless was less than that, but we were only going at G speeds (54mb/s) and most of the time I was only connecting at 39.

Still this is pretty good and I've added to the illumination factor. At the moment we have two G access points and one N access point for a total of 3 wireless access points you can connect to. In theory, the N access point called (FlightPark) should have the best throughput (bandwidth), but I haven't see that just yet. Best I've seen so far on the wireless is 30 mb/s down and 10 mb/s up. I might need to tweek the antenna positions a little bit to get optimum coverage. The speeds I'm currently seeing in the LZ are better than I typically get at home unless I am in the same room.

I'm planning on updating the router so there is a gig wan port for better performance later on. Jay says it's the best its ever been. Tonight I was viewing full HD movie previews on the far end of the LZ (beerio). I watched until it was dark and decided I needed to be home. There were no drop outs or buffering during the previews. I was also in the car at the time.

I think we're mainly complete now and need your input on the speed and reliability. You can see me for the FlightPark security code. Security codes for SHGA and SHGA LZ remain the same for right now.

Asking for money on the internet, for the internet. Chip has brought cyber panhandling down to another layer. This is deep.

Any payments should be considered donations to SHGA and now are tax deductible, if you file Sch A with your IRS form 1040.