Cypress Mtn
The setup of equipment began very close to 2pm, with the antenna mast being put up on a solid base. Simultaneously, Ivan was very confused as to how to set up a tent until he RTFM and realised that the each pole had a number associated with it. The tent was finally put up with the help of all people attending, and we had some much needed shade at that altitude!
The antenna was put up and connected shortly after, with a camera and a WRT54G on top of the antenna mast. Once we got a table up and two cars with inverters up and running, we had electricity and the Airmux came alive. Surprisingly, it had a signal right away, even though no attempt was made to make sure the antenna was pointing towards the Nanaimo side. After some minor adjustments, we had a good signal; which was close to what was calculated.
Once the link was up, we had quite a few pesky routing issues, which took up most of our time. During this debugging phase, we had a couple of folks stop by to ask us what we were doing; even a person who asked us if we were trying to communicate with Saturn. Near the end, we had a conservation officer come by (Ivan suggested not to make eye contact, but we did not have any problems with the law in the end).
During the few dozen WRT reboots and various small annoyances, quite a few conversations took place, and the atmosphere was quite positive. In the end, everyone was quite happy with the results, and various people got to know the people behind the IRC names...
