Case Studies
Farm House Hidden Behind Koppie
Numerous installations of this kind have been done by SDE but not many photos are available. This is typical problem of a house behind a kopje and enclosed by heavy bush cutting it off from cellular coverage. At the site visit absolutely no signal was measured outside & around the homestead. The only reception was on the kopje and the farmer and family had to climb the kopje to make a call or receive a simple SMS.
Imagine the security risk and the frustration of not being able to call the kids at night who should have been home by 23:00? Or driving all the way to town to view your bank statement or make a payment because you do not have access to internet banking?
As the photos depict, the terrain was challenging and it wasn`t easy finding a route to drive up instead of carrying all the equipment. A wooden pole was used to blend in and after the installation the enclosure was painted in drab camo colouring.
An antenna was mounted on the wooden mast, and it was pointed at the base station which was around 9 kilometres away. The repeater and solar system were installed at the bottom of the mast and razor wire was used to protect the installation preventing baboons climbing the mast.
A 40-meter low loss cable was run in a shallow trench to the down-link antenna pointing towards the homestead. The cable trench was covered with soil & rocks for added protection. The distance to the homestead is about 180~200meters.
The SDE installation provided full signal in around the home and yard making the clients life a lot easy. An excellent job by our installers in Bela-Bela.
