LoTek Coordination

Playbook 03

Installation and rooftop safety

How trained residents install a node safely: the rules every installer follows, the pre-climb checklist and the steps from parapet to first link.

Three rules

Every LoTek installer learns three rules on their first day, in this order, and each one gives way to the ones before it:

  1. Nobody gets hurt: not you, not your partner, not anyone on the street below. If anything about a climb feels wrong, it does not happen.
  2. Do what the host asks, unless it would mean someone getting hurt.
  3. Look after the equipment, unless it would mean breaking the first two rules. A radio can be replaced.

Installers work in pairs, always. Nobody climbs alone, and nobody climbs without having completed the climbing safety workshop in the last two years.

Before you climb

The pre-climb checklist is printed inside every Gantry lid and on the back of every installer’s badge. Read it aloud with your partner, every time:

  1. Weather: no climbs in rain, ice, high wind or lightning within thirty miles, and no 60 GHz alignment in fog.
  2. Access: the host knows you are here, and you know the way down.
  3. Ladder: footed, tied off, extending three rungs above the roof edge.
  4. Harness: on, inspected, and clipped to an anchor or a rated parapet within two meters of any edge.
  5. Tools: tethered. Nothing goes up that could fall on someone.
  6. Phone: charged, with the steward on call’s number.

Installing a Stoop

  1. Choose the mount with the host: chimney strap, parapet clamp or ballast mount. Never drill a roof membrane without written consent.
  2. Mount the pole plumb, then fit the node and point it roughly at the hub using the survey bearing.
  3. Run the cable along existing penetrations or down the outside wall in a drip loop. Seal every connector with the specified sealant and self-amalgamating tape.
  4. Ground the mount to the building’s ground or a dedicated rod, as the hardware page specifies.
  5. Power up from the host’s socket through the injector and wait for the status light.
  6. Fine-tune the aim with the alignment tone until the signal stops improving, then tighten everything.
  7. Check the node on this site from your phone before you leave the roof. It should report within five minutes.

After the climb

Log the installation in the network’s records: node number, grid square, mount type, hardware revision and the signal you saw. Thank the host. Leave the roof cleaner than you found it.