Summer 1999 MIRA Quarterly Newsletter: Phone & Network to WSO

Summer 1999

Volunteers Bring Telephone & Network to the
Weaver Student Observatory
Story & Photos by Laura Cohan, Administrator

The morning briefing before the work, led by project organizer Kim Cohan (left).
Also shown are (l. to r.): John Sanders, Pat Barthelow, Matt Kocher,
Arthur Babcock, Robin Casady, and Paul Franks.

"Okay, now, everyone get to work!" And with that, the briefing on Feb. 28 was over, and the hardy band of MIRA volunteers dispersed to accomplish a great goal for one Sunday: to run fiber optic cable, and copper network, telephone, and alarm wires more than four hundred feet, to link three buildings that had never been connected at all, through a long run of underground conduit that had been lovingly dug out of our parking lot and installed by MIRA volunteers just for this project.

Everyone worked hard, and at the end of the day quite a lot had been achieved. We not only put in the all of the cabling, but also ran wires and installed telephone and network jacks all over the shop and the Weaver Student Observatory. Every jack was tested and pronounced operational.

And now, thanks to this amazing group of volunteers, spearheaded by Kim Cohan, we can answer the phone all the way over in the shop, and in the WSO on star party nights to tell visitors if the weather looks promising. We have 100Mbps network capability all the way out to the WSO, so that we are much closer to offering remote observations to anyone that requests them over the Internet.

paul.jpg (13991 bytes)
Paul Franks (outside) and Tom Tengdin (inside) work
together to pull through the parking lot conduit and up into the shop.

robin.jpg (12604 bytes)
Robin Casady settles into remote corners,
installing telephone and network jacks all day.

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Arthur Babcock completes the wiring in what he dubbed the
oubliette (dungeon) of the Weaver Student Observatory.

Board members John Sanders (left) and Gary Love work
to mount the box to hold the fiber optic cables secure in the shop.

Many thanks to all of the volunteers who helped with this project:
Kim Cohan, Arthur Babcock, Laura Cohan, Gary Love, John Sanders, Paul Franks, Tom Tengdin, Robin Casady, John Sanders, Pat Barthelow, Matt Kocher, Emily Cohan, Sarah Cohan, Ellen Cohan, Gordon Jones, Jim Eagle, Warren Yogi.