Recently a reader comment on the Spy suggested, “we’ve been waiting eight months, ” for the wi-fi to be turned on. The reality is the project was initiated by Bill Ingersoll in the summer of 2010 by securing a legacy grant from the state of Maryland that became available through Federal Funds in the Stimulus Reinvestment act.
Since then Mr. Ingersoll has been instrumental in moving this project forward. This involved extensive discussions with the Kent County IT Department, its director Scott Boone and Economic Development director Bernadette Van Pelt. These discussions also included but ultimately didn’t involve the Maryland Broadband Cooperative that has just completed a Point of Presence at the Hospital for the fiber optic lines traveling north on Rt. 213.
Several bids were solicited to install an open wi-fi system and the TEC Communications proposal was ultimately selected in October of 2011 due to the expanded coverage and cost. During the winter and spring of 2011 as TEC’s representative I worked with Bill and Scott on the bandwidth access and the installation of a “hand off” at the court house. The access to bulk bandwidth was made possible by Bill’s diplomatic communications with the States Sailor Internet System.
The county working with limited recourses and funds confirmed that the town would have access to a broadband connection at the court house in September 2011 and the project was officially started with TEC.
The system is based on a Proxim Tsunami base station (BSU) located in the court house basement with a 5 MHz antenna on the tower. Passersby may have seen Scott, Carey and his team up and down the tower over winter and springtime. 5 MHz subscriber (SU) radios have been install atop several light poles to communicate with the BSU and deliver the internet to the access points mounted lower on the same light poles that provide Internet coverage from the top of Fountain Park to High Street at the water and down Cross Street. Local tree expert Jason Anthony provided assistance with the use of his bucket truck to install the SU and AP’s on the light poles. Baldwin Electric performed the electrical service requirements. All of this taking place over the winter and spring. The feed to the court house “hand off” was completed in late March by Scott Boone’s team.
During April and May the TEC team has been performing the antenna alignments and troubleshooting unforeseen but not unexpected issues such as a defective antenna cables on the tower. Additional time has been dedicated to security on the backend and the configuration to mesh the AP radios.
In summary this project has taken almost two years with many people contributing their time and effort to make Chestertown one of the first communities on the eastern shore with a free public space access Internet service.
Carey Callahan
TEC Communications representative
Iration says
From a technical perspective Wi-Fi is not possible using 5 MHz equipment. The article should read 5 GHz antennas and radios.
Carey Callahan says
Correct,the BSU-SU back haul is 5.745 GHz
10 dBi Omni Directional Antenna
– St-N Female – 5.47-5.850 GHz
Steve Payne says
I know it’s still a work in progress but tonight I could only get a useable connection down at Stam Hall where the antenna is. 3M down and 1.2M up. Nothing at all around Fountain Park. I hope that other cable will solve that problem.