Titusville - WiFi, maybe at some time in the future

 

Two tower installers, proud of a job well done

The big event around here is the start of the installation of the WiFi upgrade for the Titusville Marina. I had written the city council on what I thought was the minimum requirements for a new WiFi for the marina and they wrote back that all of my suggestions had already been incorporated into the design of the new system. So the WiFi antennas will be mounted 12 feet above the docks so the signal can be aimed over 50 ft trawlers to the boat next door. We're also getting rid of the sign-in page that never seemed to come up when you tried to connect to the WiFi - no sign-in page = no WiFi signal. We'll also get a password, not so much to control access to the WiFi but just to encode the transmission from the WiFi tower to your device. I had suggested a trunk feed of 600 Mbps but they settled on 200 instead. 

That pod at the top is entirely empty - waiting for the electronics crew

So today they were out installing the towers on top of the cement pilings anchoring the fixed docks. They look massive and ought to work out well. It turns out that the system is being installed in waves. First comes the towers, next comes the electronics that go into the top of the towers. That might be a little awkward since the top of the towers are 15 feet above the docks and will require similar height ladders to reach them. 

Home sweet home, (other side of the dock), waiting for our WiFi

Ann was walking by and heard a comment, "This a piece of s--t", and they asked if they were referring to the WiFi? One guy said, "Oh, you heard that?" It was a comment on the mechanical aspects of installing the towers, not the electronics that will go inside to provide the actual signal. The white boxes on top are empty. The electronics crew will be by next to put the guts inside the boxes. "Wouldn't it have saved time to put the electronics in first", said I? "It's not in our contract, we just install the towers". 

The WiFi system was approved by the city council on 1/12/2021 and they are just now getting around to installing the towers. There's a lot to do before we get our new WiFi system. I envision that it will up and running on the first day after we leave to go north!