The pole is up!

This afternoon, while the NextGenUs crew were over in Crosby Ravensworth planning a fibre-optic installation, Bill Kerr and I went to collect the 6m pole that Matthew had prepared along with the brackets and U-bolts for fixing it to the tree.  We carried it up the hill to the tree and then went back for a ladder and Bill's chain-saw.  The latter was used to shave the trunk of the tree so as to produce flat vertical surfaces to which the brackets would be fixed with coach-screws and to ensure that the pole stood vertically when erected.  After a little trial and error we managed to install the pole such that 3m of it are attached to the tree and 3m protrude above the top of the tree.  Matthew had done a very good job in fabricating this equipment and we were quite pleased with ourselves at having managed to install it.

We took some photos with Bill's phone and hopefully they can be retrieved and posted here in due course.

Tomorrow the plan is to bring the pole down and for our NextGenUs colleagues to fix the NanoStations and their cables to it and then re-erect it on the tree.  We are hoping to use a portable generator to power it temporarily while we test it.