A tour of the new Headquarters

I'm a wireless engineer and do this type of engineering for a living (point to point microwave networks for E911 centers). If you'd like some pointers, advice, or engineering software to look at equipment, numbers, heights, etc -- feel free to reach out to me. n3lee@beltronics.net

I'll give a longer update in video form at some point, but here's where things stand; I have now heard that the ISP is completely lying through their teeth and that they have no intention of adding new capacity. It's effing maddening BUT that is not the end of the world. I'm working with two options right now: 1) AT&T offers a product called "Wireless Home Services" which is a standalone hotspot that also has traditional phone jacks and an Ethernet jack. I've just gotten my hands on one, and while it's not unlimited, it has a 100 GB plan. It's $100/month, so not exactly cheap, but it's also generally faster and will enable slightly-better-than-molasses upload speed. 2) I am looking into setting up a wireless link to either my parent's house or a neighbor's. I looked on Google Earth and there is a straight line-of-site between their house and HQ, with no building obstructions but with a lot of trees. It's not a terrible distance so the trees may not be an issue, it if they are a problem, my almost-next-door neighbor is a family friend who's not there full time, and surely I can get a link to his place. However, he only gets 6 mbps download, whereas my parents are getting 12, so if a link between them and me will work, we'll explore it. For now, the AT&T box will be my only setup. I'm not under a contract with it so I can cancel at any time, but if I can get faster reliable upload speeds it may be worth keeping anyway. Time will tell.

Technology Connections

Trim the trees back from the house, one storm can cause a lot of damage.

As for your internet access, given you live out in a rural area maybe you can research local WISPs if there are any. At the very least it may get you by until wireline options open up. And given you made the mention of a lack of open ports for your current option, sounds like you may be limited to DSL/VDSL out there which may also mean relatively poor speeds to begin with so a WISP may be a pretty viable alternative if it is available to you. EDIT: Looks like there were some previous comments I missed from you and others that covered some of this already. Yeah, DSL may not be a fun experience out there. Even if a WISP is not available, as someone else already mentioned maybe you can explore building your own long range link to somewhere closer to town where you can arrange a space and good connectivity. Would also possibly give you very good video material if you decide to venture down that route. Pro tip if exploring this: Ubiquiti and Cambium are two very good manufacturers for wireless equipment to look at.

Awesome facility. I lost one not unlike it to Hurricane Kat. One word of advice: 'tis better to build one little closet than to curse the starkness.

I love it! I have always loved quiet areas like that with the sounds and sights of nature. Lived in it all my life. Would love to have that property if it weren't so far north!

Christopher Bassett

When you said the place was unfinished I imagined something a lot more basic than that. You have a place with huge potential and probably not all that much work at the end of the day. I have to ask - why would you NOT move in as your home! I would love a home in the country like that.

John M

This is really cool, in the middle of the forest, and with the deer, which is very cute :-). Fortunately, I also get to see them here in Switzerland. Also funny to see how different the houses are built in the US in comparison to Europe, the big 20 and 40 amp circuit breakers for the 120V. Wish you good luck moving in!

MrHammond

Congratulations! I remember that first home feeling. It's a little scary when something breaks and you realize it's on you to fix it or hire someone to do it, but you've got the mind for figuring out how things work. You're gonna love it!

You have a blank canvas on which you can paint whatever you want! Sometimes unfinished is a bonus as you can put in what you want without feeling that you are destroying something that worked.

Michael Steeves

#1 rule of garages: They are too small. It doesn't matter how big they are, they are too small.

Michael Steeves

Alec, I spent the first thirty years of my career making educational TV programmes with two different colleges of the University of London and the Inner London Education Authority. My audience was school children and university students; yours is the world. I would have loved the opportunity to be in your situation at your time of life. To be able to do something you clearly love and have a talent for, and do it so well that people voluntarily pay you, is unique to this era of technology. I am now 70 and retired, were I 30 again, I would be doing what you are doing. I'm quite envious in one way - yet totally happy to sit here with my pension and watch you in another! :-) Practicalities: Personally, I would make the large side of the basement into the studio and the other into the editing suite / office. Big preview monitor, sound deadening, good quality monitor speakers, shielded down lighting over the edit desk. <a href="https://is.gd/alecs_suite" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://is.gd/alecs_suite</a> You clearly have power and water at the back of that area. Add a small fridge, sink and cupboards so you can make coffee and wash cups and you're set. And start a private pension. Good luck! :-)

Stephen Bell

I'm so excited for you! So much potential in the space! Side note: I wish you could do a series going through homes and trying to figure out the reasoning behind the construction choices.

Kevin Kostka

Thanks for the tour! Lots of possibilities there. The “dark” master bedroom could work well for sleeping if combined with a “sunrise simulation” lamp to wake up in the morning (on a timer). If you can figure out where the cell tower is, you could plausible mount an external antenna facing it and feed that into an Internet Gateway for the house. One on my friends does that with their rural location. If you can get a good LTE signal with a good antenna it’s pretty usable (give or take cellular data costs). Ewen

Ewen McNeill

Can you use the unused 4-space breaker for the oven to power your car charger?

Mark Hesse

Awesome and best of luck on the new HQ!!

CJ Carpenter

You might consider working something out with someone in that nearby town to point an antenna your way. With proper design, construction, and alignment, you can get really good throughput with a wireless link. One of the people I most respect as a hacker has done this to get broadband to their compound way out in the sticks.

Thanks! You've made it happen! One of the scarier things about propane is that the price can fluctuate. Right now I know it's around $1.90 a gallon, so to fill the tank from empty would be shy of a thousand. But, you wouldn't ever want it getting near that low. I think most of the time when they swing by to check the tank you're only down to 30%, or 20% at the worst. And they never quite fill it up all the way. (advice from a neighbor).

Technology Connections

Yes the connectivity issue is a thorn in my side. Annoyingly there's a tiny little town about 8 miles away that Comcast services, but they don't come out to Headquarters, even though there are hundreds of homes in the development. I don't know why they don't get cable service to that area. But, once I can get connected with the local phone company it won't be too bad. Plenty for streaming HD content, and decent enough for downloads of whatever. Video uploads will take hours, though. Regarding rural life: I'm pretty certain I will love living there full time, but I have some lingering doubts. It's not so much the amenities as it is a sense of place. Occasionally I feel like I'm just a fish out of water down there. That said, I've never -ever- been a City person. My peers from school are all in the desirable, gentrified, hipster neighborhoods of Chicago paying ungodly rents for no space at all, and from day one I was like "no thanks, the suburbs is fine". I can say with certainty that I'd be more comfortable living at Headquarters than I would be in the city itself.

Technology Connections

Congratulations!!! You're all growed up now with a house! I remember the in over my head feeling when I bought this house. In the early 80s when I was a wee lad, I remember we had a gas tank out back but it was much smaller than the one you have. I was 4 or 5 and it was about my height. Also, I'm quite sure that my folks couldn't have paid $1,000 in early 1980s dollars to have filled the thing up. We brought in a new trailer when I was 5 and it was gotten rid of since everything was electric.

Jason Wellband

Great back yard and new space!! I grew up in a rural area like that and now live in a city... I miss the rural life (except lack of connectivity!). Thanks for sharing!

oh man, properly disposing of those 8ft tubes isn't easy. most places will take 4ft ones, but not 8ft. When I bought my house it had a bunch of T12s, I got rid of them all. 25ish 4ft bulbs, and 6 8ft bulbs from 3 fixtures. Those barely fit in my car.

adcurtin

YOU DA MAN.