Construction on Rogers Peak? (And more about DV area comms)

[Candace66]

Back in 2019 or 2020, the NPS green-lighted the proposed expansion of the Rogers Peak comm site:

"The National Park Service has selected Alternative 2: Proposed Action as the alternative for implementation because it best meets the purpose of, and need for, action without causing significant impacts on Park resources. Under the selected alternative, new infrastructure will be constructed on Rogers Peak and some infrastructure will be removed."


Click here

I haven't been out there for awhile.  Has anyone observed any work going on up there?  It should be a major project. Among other things, there will be a big new radome, plus at least one new tower, up to 99 feet tall (!), which will host an AT&T wireless site.

While looking for updates on that, I found this document:

Document here

That document also includes some tid-bits I didn't know about, or simply forgot, in particular these two:

"The park approved the future installation of a 20-foot booster facility...near the Grapevine Ranger Station." (This would be for wireless phone coverage.)

"Commnet may submit a request for a right-of-way permit to build a 30-foot tower on Chloride Cliff...  The tower would support a
microwave relay that would be capable of backhauling data to other Commnet-operated towers within the park."  (Commnet owns the cell sites in Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells.)

[MojaveGeek]

I did not see any construction activity on Rogers Pk last month. I would also think there would be helicopter traffic bringing in the gear, though it could be driven up the road, but not in a big truck.

I, too, missed the bit about a tower at Chloride. If this is an alternative way of getting data from the tower at SPW over to Beatty (IIRC they have a strong presence there?) that might help the SPW data situation, which is very poor at busy times of day.

Strangely, when I was there in March my T-mobile phone would connect to Comnet (which it displayed only as a 6 digit string for network name, but I've verified it is associated with Comnet) in roaming mode, whereas my wife's phone (we share the same family plan) would get T-mobile data off it. But I think Eric was also seeing AT&T there - is one of them leasing bandwidth from the other?

A relay at Grapevine would not be a bad thing. I find a bit of coverage out there to be pretty useful, checking weather and stuff.