As we go into storm season I wanted to give everyone an overview on the internet connection at the Post Rock hub repeater site as it pertains to AllstarLink and Skywarn operations so everyone will know what to expect.
About three years ago the local ISP’s copper DSL circuit got noisy and finally failed, prompting me to move the repeater internet traffic over to the Ubiquity microwave link I had previously installed between my house and the repeater site in anticipation that this would eventually happen.
The good news is that the microwave path is rock-solid and never drops a packet.
The bad news is my home ISP is Vyve, fed with CATV coax. There are a few line amplifiers between my house and the CATV head-end which do not have battery backup when power fails. The CATV head-end is not backed up in any way. If any part of town loses power and/or if Evergy’s feed into this area goes down…. the AllstarLink system goes down.
This situation will likely remain this way until some ISP finally installs fiber in this town.
The only repeaters that connect to Post Rock via Allstar on a regular basis are Dodge City and Paola. El Dorado will be back soon.
There is an effort being made to move the Allstar hub to a more reliable internet host.