Watt's New


The Watt's New articles serve to keep you abreast of what has been going on around the C.A.R.L.A. Network. Feel free to browse our archive of past Watt's New articles as well.

On this page:

  • Shasta region coverage re-established
    Shasta region coverage re-established
    Last updated on August 5, 2018 by The C.A.R.L.A. Team | This article is Archived | Permalink

    Despite the recent hits we took at CARLA 20 & 25 during the Carr Fire, there is some good news
    to report. We are pleased to announce that CARLA 20 (Burney) has been re-built, back on the air
    with coverage for the greater Redding/Burney area and is linked back into the rest of network.
    A brand new repeater was installed along with a new controller, complete overhaul of the power
    plant/distro and installation of an Allstar Node and cellular backhaul link to the Primary Mt.
    Vaca hub. This is turn has re-routed and re-established connectivity to the Shasta hub at CARLA
    13's site and CARLA 28.

    Several people were involved with the procurement, programming, preparation, building, last
    minute rush, travelling, installation, testing and troubleshooting of the same to pull
    everything together and get things in place to make all this happen in less than a week!

    A special thanks goes out to Chris Novara, AB7BS (from the Oregon Connection) who scrambled for
    several days to help get all the Allstar and Raspberry Pi Node equipment built with some custom
    enhancements, programmed, tested and overnighted to us in time for our Saturday installation
    target date, which turned out to be a grueling 20 hour day!

    CARLA 25 (Redding) is still OOS from fire damage and there is no update as far as an ETR is
    concerned. We expect that it will be off the air for a while and access to the site is
    restricted since the Carr fire is still very active and on the move.

    We still have some adjustments to make remotely and the IP link via the cell network may not be
    what we would consider three 9's (99.9% reliability) but it's better than the alternative.

    This was a TEAM effort to make this happen and is very much appreciated!