Internet antennas atop ancient redwood
SoHum’s off-grid lifestyle and our extremely rugged topography create special access challenges, whether by car or computer. We live on the dusty, tortuous, slide-prone backroads of both the physical landscape and the internet superhighway. We surf the web in high-clearance 4WD.
While many people are still on 16K-24K dialup modem connections and others with southern sky access have satellite internet, one local provider has found a way to bring high-speed wireless broadband to many remote areas via a network of repeaters that bounce the signal deep behind the Redwood Firewall—the 21st Century version of our perennially puncture-resistant Redwood Curtain.
The small white antennas barely visible at the top of this ancient redwood are in line-of-sight to a tower on a high ridge somewhere that in turn is line-of-sight to another tower and so on, bouncing the internet signal via microwaves to the residents in this narrow, wooded canyon. A ladder up the inside of the tree, hollowed out over the centuries by multiple wildfires, provides maintenance access. The steel ladder is a recent improvement over the old wooden ladder nailed up behind it.
And, no, your cell phone won’t work out here.
Ladder access up hollow tree to internet antennas
That is a wonderful SoHum Hillbilly fix.
I’m running my portable mill nearby and it cracks me up on the way to the job site.
The city makes towers look like trees to hide them. Here trees are the towers with ladders, antennas and dishes hidden inside them. I’m thinking of making a new post tagging category: “You couldn’t make this up.”