On Sunday October 10 I drove out to Gateway to meet with John Fuller (WJ0Nf). I brought 2 TP-Link CPE 210 units and 2 Mikrotik LHG5 units. We setup a TP-Link and Mikrotik radio on the same mast and pointed them to a spot roughly 5 miles out to microwave tower on a nearby mountain top. After verifying that both units were functioning properly we loaded our gear onto a couple of ATVS and headed out. We followed John Brown road to a less travelled road and stopped at a spot overlooking the valley where Gateway sits. We set up both radios on a tripod mount that John brought. Once we powered up the units we could see the entire mesh on both the TP-Link and Mikrotik 5 GHZ radios. John was connected to his QTH via the 5 GHZ link and saw a steady signal. He was able to connect to the internet. I suggested that we try to improve the signal strength. John adjusted the unit and we did see a considerable improvement in the SNR. Throughput exceeded 15 MBS according to a couple of iPerf tests. For reasons I don’t understand latency on the 5 GHZ was quite high.

As for the 2.4 GHZ link the SNR was running 25 or less. From previous observations I knew that SNRS this low would result in low throughput and that is precisely what I saw. At times my requests to call up MeshChat timed out. Eventually I did manage to post notes to MeshChat. We did try to improve link quality by adjusting the aim point but no improvement was seen. TP-Link says these units will work up to 5 KM or a little over 3 miles. 
I was pleased with the performance of the 5 GHZ units and a little disappointed by the performance of the 2.4 GHZ radios in light of the fact that I had previously set up a RF link to my QTH from Cold Shivers inside the Colorado National Monument a distance that exceeded 8 miles.

All in all it was a great learning experience. Conditions were great. It was sunny with light winds. Only when moving through the canyons did temps become a little on the cool side.

On the way back we stopped at a few of the many mines that exist in the Gateway area. These mines were created to extract uranium and vanadium. John brought along a device to measure radioactivity. At the entrance to the Packrat mine John found some uranium ore that showed radiation levels well above background radiation levels. I picked up a sample and brought it back to GJ.

Many thanks to John for a memorable day.