Cliff,
I am modeling them at 3 meters. I posted that on page one of the thread:
As time allows, I’ll start modeling where Club members live to figure out optimal node placement — minimizing the number needed while maximizing coverage. I’ll probably run most of these at 3 meters (10 feet) just to keep it realistic. Of course, if anyone can go higher than 10 feet, even better!
I 100% agree with/validate your concern, elevation is nearly impossible. And you can get too many hops if you are over saturated. But my thinking is that if I can get all the lat/longs into a map modeling package and see what kind of coverage we might expect; if we can get a bunch of them at 3 meters (9-10 feet) that is a lot more doable. If – IF – we can find some places with elevation, great. But access, maintainability, etc., are increasingly hard once you are more than 10′ off the ground. In any case, if we can’t get elevation then we model what is doable. My biggest problem is that the three mapping packages I have so far worked with have sucked beyond belief. These people have no idea what they are doing for front-end users. Typical of a lot of website designs, especially websites for outfits that don’t have the budget of a Bass Pro Shops website; goober-heads that don’t think like normal people code a lot of them and it makes it torture for the end user. 😒😎
73
Phillip Beall (W5EBC)