Company News Blog
COKE Service point replaced - 8/29/11
If your login page indicates you are served by the coke system, then you know that we had to replace this system after intermittent the past several days. The problem was the customer facing transmitter that had issues that were invisible to the motherboard or us! A Completly new system was tested and installed and is performing well.
PEPSI Service point replaced - 8/6/11
If your login page indicates you are served by the pepsi system, then you know that we had to replace this system after intermittent behavior Thursday and Friday. The emergency replacement happened Saturday afternoon, and all appears well now.
Too many Login requests - 8/4/11
You may have noticed Thursday and Friday, that our login page would appear multiple times per day. This is not normal behavior, and was corrected Friday afternoon. It was a delayed configuration error that appeared after the cookies for the new password server expired. Normally, you will not see a login more frequently than every couple days, and if you allow cookies from http://login.rabbitmeadows.com, it could be weeks.
Network Center relocated after PUD change - 7/22/11
We were recently notified by our upstream provider that the Chelan PUD decided (after 8 years) that we are required to have a different type of fiber account. This meant we had to move our network center to a newer part of the CCPUD network where we could continue to grow. Unfortunately, this doubles our cost, but does provide us with a higher priority traffic on the fiber network. This change occured throughout the early hours of Friday the 22nd of July.
New pasword server deployed 7/20/11
The new password server had slightly different password requirements and a handful of phone calls and password changes were necessary. With this new server, will be a new place where our customers can monitor their bandwidth use in great detail. Visit our Account Statistics page.
McNeil Canyon Link Upgraded 6/18/11
A main feed link that serves McNeil Canyon and Howard Flat was upgraded today. One more link needs to be upgraded before the full potential of today's work will be available.
email changes 5/11
We put our new email server into service nearly 2 years ago. Today we retire some of the cumbersome compatibility rules that allowed users to avoid changing email settings. Please make sure your Outlook, Thunderbird, or other email client is setup as indicated on our support page.
Fattening the delivery 'pipes' - 5/5/11
With increasing Internet demands left from the PUD Fiber grant problems, we have begun working on increasing our capacity to serve you better. The capacity of our fiber connection has tripled and we're working to get that capacity out to you.
Thursday May 5th, we spent the night replacing equipment for the first primary microwave 'pipe'. Other than a long night, it was very successful and the performance of the entire network is improved. We will continue to use the newer technology to replace other delivery 'pipes' to improve performance and eventually provide new packages to customers!
Summer 2010
Scheduled work, Bear Mountain Site 8/17/2010
We will be bringing down the Bear Mountain site on Tuesday night from about 9pm till 1am for the purpose of replacing the failed south sector radio. All equipment is burned in, so we hope to avoid any early equipment failures from using out of the box equipment. Full capacity operation from this site is expected after the maintenance work. In fact, on the 2Ghz side the new equipment is now 50% stronger and at the legal limit. This should provide improved signal quality, and an improved Internet experience for some customers. ;-)
2 Lightning Storms Hit us 4 times
A very unusual stationary low pressure system produced persistent slow moving thunderstorms in the Chelan area. Two Lightning storms caused damage to multiple parts and systems in the rabbitmeadows network. Bear Mountain was hit twice while another two locations were hit as well. In our eight years of service, we have only seen one possible lightning related damage before these storms came through!!
July 31st about 5pm
One powerful lightning bolt struck near our tower on Bear Mountain. This particular site is one of our busiest sites serving the greater Manson area and some Union Valley customers. This site feeds our uplake site that serves Greens Landing, and Kelly's Resort area as well. On my initial trip to the site, that night it appeared that the UPS power supply was tripped off, and I reset it.
In hindsight, it is clear that this storm caused a small relay system on Howard Flats to go offline, as we now have reports of a lightning strike within a couple hundred yards.
Aug 1-2
The next trip Sunday morning the damage was clear: 3 power supplies, 3 router/computers, and 6 microwave radios were all destroyed and non functioning! Of all this, two computers and radios were not on the tower (ground locations).
This level of destruction outstripped our supply of normal spares on hand. This complex site was re-engineered with all routers on the ground, and more cables up the tower to power independent radio units. A team was assembled and we got the tower down, reconfigured, and raised by Sunday night. By Monday morning at 11am the new system was configured and functioning, however there were still some individual customer issues.
I consulted with others in the industry and found the equipment used for some of the replacement radios would produce a weaker than expected signal when using the external antenna. I promptly ordered different gear overnight to address the low signal issue affecting some customers.
Aug 3 -not again!
Tuesday was not good. There was a fire at Navarre Coulee that was potentially threatening our home/office. That fire was contained by good helicopter support and the thunderstorm that followed in the afternoon/evening.
The thunderstorm produced even more lightning strikes in the area. Our home/office was struck and after our initial shock, more damage became clear. 3 microwave radios, one router computer and several switches were destroyed along with a cell phone amplifier.
Meanwhile, back at the Bear Mountain site there were multiple strikes. A resident reported a 5 foot spark inside a nearby home. This time the damage was not as severe, but some radios on the tower were damaged.
Aug 4
New radios arrived. We took down the tower again in the evening from 9-midnight. The new gear was functioning by morning the next day.
Aug 5
As part of the re-engineering of the Bear Mountain site, I needed to re-configure a small relay that serves a couple customers up to Fields point. Arriving at this uplake site, we found a power problem from and accidental construction dig. This prevented the work.
Sometime in the afternoon around 3pm, one of the "new" radios that served the south direction from Bear Mountain quit responding. This meant that a handful of customers were now getting weak signals again because they were connecting to an antenna pointing the wrong direction (North).
Aug 6
When we originally upgraded the Bear Mountain site about 3 and a half years ago, all the equipment was assembled, tested, and burned in for a week before ever leaving the lab. The previous day's failure was simply an early failure, but unfortunately one on top of the tower!
Worked and installed a temporary solution for the south sector. I ran a temporary cable to the original site location where we had mounted antennas before the tower was erected. This cable and ground based location would pickup the south customers until the 3rd tower work project was planned.
Aug 7
Power was restored to the new uplake site serving Field's point. My trip there to re-configure equipment was successful after a few circuit breaker glitches. Worked on Howard Flats relay for the second time today as well.
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