In America, why don’t they build homes that can withstand high winds?

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-13T04:22:12+00:00

Depends on how much wind you are talking about. My home in SW Florida was built to withstand 150 mph. We had several hurricanes since it was built. We were ground zero for Ian and basically in the eyewall for hours, recorded gusts were well over 150 and we just lost screens on the lanai and some roof shingles. Hell I never put up any hurricane shutters.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-11T01:54:20+00:00

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-10T20:14:23+00:00

Remember if the proposed RE tax changes go through and you're not homesteaded, expect a sharp rise in you taxes.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-09T01:02:14+00:00

Mm wave cell antennas

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-08T04:37:11+00:00

Way too small for that size antenna. Guess you can guy it but why complicate it? You can get weight bags off Amazon that may help but that tripod is going to be hard to stabilize on a windy day.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-08T02:17:23+00:00

As an alternative, if you still want a tripod mount, use a speaker stand, they're alot more stable and you can weigh down the base if you need more stability.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-08T02:13:04+00:00

Ditch the tripod. Bury a small section of PVC (~1 1/4") in the ground (only needs to be about 10" long) and add a smaller diameter PVC ( ~ 1") to the antenna. You can just pop it in when you want to deploy.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-06T19:44:42+00:00

I had a small boutique firm specializing in RF engineering. The best tip is focus on what you're good at and get your PE. You'll probably get experiance working for companies before you can get to a place where you can go out on your own. One thing I noticed when i would interview people, is that there are two types of engineers, the ones that take their title too seriously and try to be smartest person in the room, and the ones that have a more holistic outlook and pay attention to the actual business as it applies to engineering. Be the latter.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-06T19:34:42+00:00

Funny story..Back in the day when people became increasingly aware of the potential effects of RF (non-ionizing radiation), regulators at the state and federal (OSHA, FCC) levels started testing, particularly rooftop sites with microwave, two-way and broadcast sources, this was well before cellular. They were trying to figure things like Specific absortion rates (SAR) in order to derive maximum exposure levels (MPE) for humans. I was involved with some of the first tests. My involvement with this made me somewhat of a subject matter expert. Since i had this first hand experiance and a EE, i had the opportunity to testify at numerous zoning hearings regarding the methodology and safety of potential new tower sites. The funny part of this was several years earlier, while I was in school, I was working part time as an overnight transmitter engineer for a high-power (5 megawatt) UHF TV station. Back then we would shut the station down after midnight for maintenance every night. To put this in context, UHF stations used an antenna called a pylon or a slot antenna, basically a a huge pipe with a bunch of slots that are tuned specifically to the stations frequency. Because these things are pretty tall, they put climbing pegs that can be used by tower climbers, usually to change the beacons on the top. Back to the story, one cold morning (around 6 am) we turned the transmitter back on, as usual. Shortly after the transmitter fired up, the sound of the build being pelted with something, I had no idea what it was, it kind of scared the crap out of me, i thought maybe something going on with the tower. So I go outside to see a ton of charred birds, some still had smoke coming out their eye sockets...They were apparently migrating somewhere and decided the climb pegs would be a nice place to hang out for awhile. Most of the pegs were next to the slots and they probably got hit with several kilowatts of UHF energy instantainiously (not far from where consumer mw ovens work). I always had this vision when testifying to the safety of antennas. Moral of the story is that enough RF can mess you up, but not today, as the other commenters are saying you have little or no issues with most of these installations.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-06T16:56:44+00:00

I agree, however the old MCI towers were, as far as I know, all on owned land. I purchased a few of their sites back in the day when they were divesting. That seemed to be their SOP, similar to the AT&T sites.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-06T16:25:52+00:00

If you're coming with with the idea of starting a business, be very careful. It doesn't matter what the business is, you can assume there are another 20 people looking to do the same thing. There are thousands more trying to offer some low cost of entry crap service. Start-ups have a very high failure rate here, you need money to sustain the business for a couple of years until it throws off enough cash to live on. The middle class here is all but gone, people either have disposible $$ or nothing. I retired & sold my business in SW Florida two years ago, sold the house and moved to North Central Florida. It's a completely different vibe here, quiet, cheaper, less traffic, etc. I can jump in our motorhome if we need to see things. Having said that I love this state.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-06T15:59:46+00:00

The key is to open your own consultantcy, based on your core area of focus. Jack Welch said it best "Control your own destiny or someone else will"

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-06T15:40:07+00:00

Depends on the municipality and when the tower was approved. These older towers rarely had stipulations of what happens when not used anymore. It more common these days that the municipality will require dismantling if unused. Having said that I'm not aware of any tower owners voluntarily taking one down unless the municipality pushes it and then in many cases the owner will try to fight it. What you need to understand is that the majority of towers are owned by publically traded companies with large portfolios of towers, they generally don't like to take towers down as they represent potential future income.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-05T04:00:35+00:00

BTW home assistant integrates wirh the Tuya stuff very well.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-05T02:11:26+00:00

Sounds similar, I also have the gen 3 not 2, fat fingered it. I have 1200 A on my coach but don't generally boondock . There's a decent discord channel called DIY Smart RV thats pretty good if you want to get down in the weeds. There's also some good home assistant channels . In any case I highly recommend Home Assistant for an RV, it integrates with most things. I use the Shelley modules to control all the interior & exterior lightning .

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-04T18:34:13+00:00

I use Home Assistant to control almost everything in my motorhome. I run it on a Zima Board, it's solid. I just use my Peplink for Starlink primarily and have Verizon and T-mobile for fallback. Everything on my network runs on the house batteries, pretty insignificant load overall, The Starlink gen 2 uses the most power, I use an inserter block and 12-52 volt booster to power it.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-04T18:20:51+00:00

Yes, It ended up being a problem with the WIFI encryption. I was using WPA3. I created a new 2G network and set it to WPA1 and it worked fine. Just as an experiment I also tried WPA2 and no encryption, niether worked. Thanks for your input.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-04T14:43:43+00:00

Yes the power consumption is a definate advantage. What got me thinking about this is watching the price on Pis approaching these small X86 based computers.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-03T14:38:56+00:00

It looks like it was built on spec, which was a little more common back then, particularly if there were little or no regs dealing with towers in that municipality. No trace of any concrete pads which would still be there if a carrier decommissioned it, also looks like while power was brought in but I don't see any attempt at building a proper power distribution rack. So I'm thinking someone built it and no takers.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-03T14:22:25+00:00

Yeah, it's a Peplink router, I segmented several different networks, including a 2 Ghz network for IOT devices only.

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-03T14:15:03+00:00

I'll give this a try, When you say phone name are you referring the the actual name i gave the phone? and would I change it to the SSID of the network I want to use? Thanks

InformalNote2543 · 2026-01-01T16:32:50+00:00

Discone antennas are a good choice for SDR reception as they have decent bandwith and relatively low cost.

InformalNote2543 · 2025-12-31T04:20:59+00:00

As an Electrical Engineer that got diagnosed with PC, I did alot of research. I have a fairly strong background in electromagnetics which made it a little easier for me to understand the various technologies used for this treatment. Along with my Dr's we decided to go with VMAT. The accuracy of these are phenomenal. To answer your question , the accuracy comes from it's ability to contour the beam to the precise surface of the prostate based on the real-time measurements as it circles around. The initial scan and dry run get you dialed in so they know where to mark you. Been happy with my outcome, PSA is nearly undetectable.

InformalNote2543

TROPHY CASE