Wireless woes

Sigh... the wireless guy at our service provider says they are "out of options" for fixing our wireless link. I think that means "we don't have enough affected subscribers to make it worth fixing". Also complicating the situation is that the service provider doesn't really own the equipment, they just resell the bandwidth for the real owner, which is the Fetzer winery. Unfortunately this is really bad news on our end. I dropped almost $500 on the antenna, and going to satellite means another big chunk of change plus royally sucky service.

I'm casting about for any and all options. What stopped working for no reason might start again for no reason, so option 1 is to wait and see. The only remaining thing I can think of to try myself is to remove the cable from under the house - I hate going under there - and test every single location within the 200 foot radius I have to work with. And then? I would be willing to hire a specialist myself to look at the situation, but I don't know if I can get any access to the relay station so it's not clear if that's worthwhile.

Anyway, just in case someone has some bright ideas, here are a few relevant facts:

- The antenna is made by Tranzeo, and is shaped roughly like a pizza box.

-I've already tried disconnecting all devices we own that might even theoretically operate in the same wireless band, to no effect.

- In the recent past, we got a very strong signal. Now we get no signal at all. People up the hill from us apparently continue to get a signal.

- This has happened before, and the service provider fixed the situation by changing the wireless frequency. That didn't work this time.

- We are about 2-3 miles from the relay, but there are trees in the line-of-sight. Others in our area are also having problems, so I don't think it's the trees per se, but it could be.

Unfortunately rural life is like this - something you take for granted ends up ballooning into a giant problem that sucks up all your time. It makes planning kind of difficult. I'm realizing that this is related to the bizarre lack of direction I find when dealing with other people up here; the whole modernist concept of "vision" and "strategy" is more or less out the window, making all decisions local and immediate. It takes a lot of getting used to.

Scandalous!

Some "yellow journalism" covering the most recent Up Your Alley Fair:

http://www.zombietime.com/up_your_alley_2008/part_1_full/

The photos are highly entertaining. It's fun to try to find all the people you know. Our very own furr_a_bruin is the subject of a wonderful series of "OMG URINE" photos with especially amusing commentary.