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The 3.5 GHz band has been an interesting journey. I did not have any experience with it until summer 2020 when starting the fixed wireless operation ElektraFi in Buna TX (2 hours east of Houston) in the pineywoods of SE Texas. Dense Everygreen pine forests with pockets of deciduous trees. Trees can be from 30 to 120 feet in height. open pasture land is common with walls of trees around them or within large tracts of land. Rural space, population groups in small towns and small settlements (anywhere from a coupe of houses to 10 to towns of several hundred homes)

Started with LTE 3GPP Airspan Airharmony 4200 then migrated to Airspeed 1030 within 4 months mainly due to hurricane damage 30 days into the startup.

Mainly due to stubborn trial and error, we got it to work well, providing 25 / 35 /50 Mbps internet service out to 5 miles with up to 30-foot antenna pipes or on taller roofs.

lessons learned

Vendors are almost useless at providing good operational guidance in making design decisions. Lots of trial-by-fire testing yielded what worked – very hard and cost time and money.

Examples – questions on loading of PCI/cells – we did not know that for 20 MHz channel sizes and planning for 64 to 256 QAM modulations (did not know until too late) that we should cap CPE capacity at around 30 and make sure all CPE’s were CAT12 or later models.

SMALL ops EPC servers, keep the seat count below 450, ideal size is about 350 max.

Signals and qualifications

RSRP of -105 minimum and SINR of 15 or higher to get to consistent 64 and 265 QAM modulation support and best use of PRB’s in the 20 MHz channel. Use the features properly with good signals and it works well. That mix of guidance would have been nice to have the details prior to building a site #1. #experience #startup #design

Fast forward to 2022 and putting in Tarana BN (SECTOR Radio) and RN (CPE)

Trees still matter, the Tarana spatial modulation and handling enables faster in the same environment of foliage. The RF digital drop point is sharper, thus blow by blow the Tarana solution has less range than 3GPP LTE in the same path geometry #testing #environment #digital #cbrs

Tarana needs the pathloss to be 149 dB or better and the SINR to be 10 or better for a reliable delivery of 100 to 200 down and 20 to 50 up. This will work well out to 8 miles in our forested environment with the RF highway path even with NLOS – totally depends on clutter and terrain. Tree foliage loss still obeys physics even with Tarana Star Trek Magic. #geometry

CBRS and SAS

The Tower sector radios (BN’s) are less impacted by DPA spectrum grant suspensions than the RN’s most of the time. By less impacted I mean they can move faster to non DPA spectrum channels than the RN’s can. I am hopeful that Tarana and the SAS providers can arrive at a faster move cycle to make DPA events smoother and minutes instead of hours long outages.

April 1983. Baton Rouge

Pawpaw

First real feeling of grief. 1983

Joshua Blake hargrove June 22 2002 1250 am June 2002. Grief on nuclear steroids

Most of my life personally or work/career wise happened not by design or my strategic plan in the details

I planned on being a power engineer at the electric utility company and becoming an engineering manager over a team of power engineering building transmission lines and substations.  I trained for that in a work study program in college with Gulf States Utilities over 2 years..  Because of a hobby called amateur radio and practicing Morse code transmission on my lunch hour in Lake Charles Louisiana,  my future boss when I graduated saw me doing that.  On graduation,  he ‘stole’ me from the transmission engineering manager to run a microwave radio and tower replacement project that covered 250 substations and 400 miles of coastline areas of Texas and Louisiana.    That started my decades long career into Telecommunications.  Practicing Morse code and working harder than anyone else around me,  constant learning,  being a solution to every problem that I encountered is what landed me that opportunity.

I planned on starting and retiring from the power company (great benefits, retirement, 401K etc).  The merger started in 1992 and was to close in early 1994.  I exited due to culture differences in companies in mid 1993 and landed at a consulting company and started rebuilding microwave systems for pipelines.  Not in my original plan.

As a result of doing this work,  I started a consulting company intending to work for Oil and Gas companies in Telecom and Scada.  After a couple of years of work, in 1997 I was invited to do a project for an electric co-op in East Texas.  That grew to a  multi-state consulting project list with dozens of Co-ops over the next 22 years and a couple of overseas projects.  Again – not in my original plan.  But very beneficial to me in work and personally.

In 2014 I was offered a position at the electric co-op that started the journey in 1997.  In 2019 I was offered a position to be CTO of 11 co-op G&T.  at the beginning of the pandemic,  I again entered the consulting market solo.  none of this was primary to my plan.

While at the co-op between 2015 and 2019,  I hired these guys known as Skyhelm to help me with Telecom projects.  One of these guys was Ryan Jenkins.

The unplanned path from practicing Morse code at age 19 to now being part of the startup known as ElektraFi was not part of my original primary plan.

The simple things you do and enjoy can result in a lifetime of good fortune.

I see now the most important thing I focused on during this journey was working hard, continuous improvement, and being a person with a solutions vision for any problem presented.

I say this to illustrate that my detailed plans often do not work out the way I envisioned.  Find a path that feels right and you can enjoy and the work will lead you where you need to go with a good positive focus.

Spring 1983 —- as communications engineer,
Hargrove oversees the engineering
efforts and construction efforts begun
last year to upgrade the microwave
network to specifications effective in
1985. By the end of 1984, his work will
help increase the system’s capacity to
2880 channels and provide two separate
parallel communication routes to each
division for more dependable service.

2014

2022

Good stress I can eat like candy

Bad stress hurts my shoulders

I

Amazing sweet conversation today at Walmart with Rena. One of those rare moments where God was there.

June 21 2002 – My wife and were in a movie, late night,  watching Minority report – a sub theme was the grieving father whose son died.  The Father was not handling the loss of his son well.   I remember saying to Leisa how difficult that would be to lose your child.   During the movie, my wife Leisa grabbed my arm  and said something is wrong with Joshua, I got my phone to call,  I started to dial and then she said no – never mind he is ok,  as I put my phone away – I saw the time – 12:50am.  We finished the movie and started calling Joshua.  He did not answer.  Leisa would tell me later that Jesus let her know that Joshua was ok (and God told Leisa that Joshua was not here anymore),  and she received immediate peace.  I did not receive peace, at least not at the same rate as Leisa did.  I kept saying that Joshua went home and fell asleep, his phone was out of charge,  and his van would be in the driveway…(each time I said this, Leisa said his van would not be there)  when we arrived home,  his van was not there.  We drove around looking for his van at where we thought he might be.  We called his friend Nathan who did not know where he was.  He told me that Joshua gave a ride to two others and we called them,  Byron answered and could not tell me,  his mom took the phone and told me that Joshua was dead.  At this point we were in our driveway and I simply screamed until I could not scream any longer.

We found out at 230am (while driving around looking for him) June 22 that Joshua was dead in a car accident,  away from Leisa and others between 330am and dawn,  I cried out to God, begged him to put Joshua back, and take me.  I could not understand how a son who was protected by prayer,  we anointed his van,  prayed for his protection daily,  How could this have happened?  How could God allow this to happen.?  HOW?

We attempted to go the accident scene and a mom of one of the friends was there, and stopped us from approaching his van.   The next 3 days were a blur Leisa and I ministered to people who came to comfort us.  I remember saying over and over that Joshua was dancing with Jesus. … God’s grip of grace enabled me to do this.

…for several months ….I was angry, furious with God,  I did not let anyone know for a long time.  I was upset that Leisa seemed ok, at peace,  was smiling and laughing at times.  There were too many times I was not very nice to my darling wife about this devastating loss.  I envied her peace.  My created obstacle…

Some days are easy, some are not. June is sometimes a tough month. In Texas it is hot. It is also a month that in 2002 I wish never existed. Our son Joshua died in an automobile accident. 1249am 6/22/2002 my world I believed was ok—actually fantastic – great family—great work—nice income, then at 1250am it changed and I had no control over it.

In less than 30 hours our son went from being here on earth to us burying him. His grandmother had a burial policy that paid for his funeral. She had passed a month earlier. I hurt because Joshua was such a great person and I loved him so, I miss him so much.

I sure miss him

https://photos.app.goo.gl/A8MYT78p3rxQRFoGA

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