The need for reliable communications in rugged environments has taken Daniels Electronics well beyond the mountain tops of the Canadian and American Rockies. Today the company has repeaters deployed all over the world including pipelines in Siberia, the McMurdo Research Station in the Antarctic, oil rigs off the coast of Asia, the outback of Australia, the Sinai supporting Peace keeping operations and in Africa.

 

Daniels Electronics is seeing increased opportunities internationally for its base stations and repeaters particularly P25 based systems as countries migrate their communications systems from analog to digital. In most applications P25 provides a larger coverage area compared with the European TETRA systems resulting in less infrastructure to serve a particular application. For Daniels its reputation for solar powered applications create opportunities world wide where solar powered repeaters are the only practical solution.

 

Over the past 5 years Daniels has made a concerted effort to expand internationally particularly in Australia and Asia . The company now has a number of international systems integrators selling our products in these countries. Yet, through major tradeshows such as IWCE and CommunicAsia as well as trade magazines like Mission Critical and Radio Resource International Daniels continues to make contact with international firms that appreciate the flexibility of our radio solutions and the ease of deployment. Such an encounter led to a recent and unusual deployment of one of our radios in a National Park in Rwanda . This story has a link from Victoria , BC to the Bronx Zoo in New York City to the National Park in Rwanda .

 

Nyungwe National Park is located in the south west corner of Rwanda as illustrated in the maps below. It is a natural game reserve for elephants and other large animals that has been devastated by poaching. The last surviving elephant was killed by poachers in 1999.  An initiative was undertaken by the Wildlife Conservation Society www.wcs.org and the New York City Bronx Zoo www.bronxzoo.com to reintroduce elephants into the park. In support of this initiative USAID www.usaid.gov funded the establishment of radio communications infrastructure in the park so that park rangers could effectively do their job in tracking wildlife and deterring poachers.  The project was under general management of The International Resources Group www.irgltd.com who are involved in managing USAID projects around the world.

It is hoped that this project will encourage ecotourism in Rwanda through improved biodiversity conservation, and in particular aiding the Nyungwe National Park in managing the natural beauty of the park, both flora and fauna. The park intends to reintroduce the elephant, and with a growing number of park rangers and trackers, the survival of the elephant would appear to be optimistic.

Mark Heggli, a consultant with Innovative Hydrology Inc www.innovativehydrology.com in California , was requested to specify the radio equipment required for the park based on solar powered SCADA telemetry work he had previously done in other parts of Rwanda . As a result Daniels Electronics www.danelec.com was selected and awarded the contract for the radio repeater equipment. Daniels built, configured and tested the complete radio equipment configuration prior to shipment ensuring it was ready for easy installation in Africa .

 

Mark was then asked to return to Rwanda to supervise the installation of the Daniels repeater in the Park. Here is his story of the installation.

 

The equipment was shipped from the US to the Rwandan capital - Kigali . From there it was trucked to the Park.  It all arrived safely and after a thorough check to make sure we had everything we prepared to transport the equipment to site. The Nyungwe National Park is located just 2 degrees south of the equator. I was expecting a hot humid climate, but was pleasantly surprised to find the altitude of the park to be between 6,000 and 10,000 ft, which equated to comfortable temperatures during the day and evening.

 

The local laborers earn $3 US per day so manually carrying all the equipment up the 2000 ft to the summit is much cheaper then using helicopters to fly everything up. Thus we hired a small army of porters to carry everything up the hill - batteries, the repeater and a 25 ft steel mast!





Daniels had preconfigured the entire radio repeater with duplexer in a cabinet. Once at the summit we uncrated the equipment and installed it in the repeater building (shown below). Everything worked flawlessly on first power up. The team deployed the solar panels, installed the battery banks and wired the equipment together.




Installing the antenna had a definite Rwandan approach. Our lack of equipment never was a concern and did not slow down the installation at all. To mount the 25 ft antenna mast we needed some scaffolding so using a machete and some nearby trees the porters quickly made a scaffold in under two hours. From there it was straightforward effort to raise and secure the antenna (as shown above).   The people of Rwanda are among the most resourceful and creative people that I have ever encountered.

 

We then began testing the repeater from several locations around the park and everything worked fine. To celebrate our success the park rangers and I then shared a meal together. Previously the park had maintained communications by having three rangers live on the summit and relay messages around the park by handhelds. There would was often confusion introduced with the human relay method.  With the successful installation of a solar powered repeater from Daniels Electronics the rangers can now communicate throughout the park.  A few rangers will remain to protect the equipment. 

 

As I was leaving the park I was monitoring communications and had noticed that radio communication had increased at least five-fold.  Ranger stations that could never communicate with other ranger stations were now able to communicate and carry out the business of the park.  This was likely the most rewarding work effort that I have ever been part of.  The rangers and wardens are truly thankful for such fine equipment, and this wonderful gift from the American people.


About the Author

 

Mark Heggli is a consultant with Innovative Hydrology, Inc. www.innovativehydrology.com in Auburn, California .

He can be reached at