There is never a dull moment when the BRCK engineering team goes out for a field trip to test out new tech. The experience and victories gained are always priceless. This time the team set out to the world’s largest refugee complex, about 90km back from the Kenya-Somalia border. The mission, as we had chosen to accept: To pilot the PicoBRCK for the UNHCR WASH project at one borehole location.

The Dadaab refugee complex hosts almost a quarter million people, which requires UNHCR WASH to treat and pump a total of 10 million liters of water per day from 28 boreholes scattered around the camp. This is a pretty amazing feat to accomplish and it is stunning to see how the WASH team in Dadaab meticulously pulls it off, considering the sheer size of the area the complex occupies. To improve this process, BRCK and UNHCR teamed up to provide a solution that would enable remote monitoring of water generation and water treatment using the PicoBRCK as an IoT platform.

The first thing you notice when you arrive in Dadaab is the glaring sun that makes you sweat enough water to make some cloud cover later in the day. More importantly, we were interested in how the lithium batteries in the PicoBRCKs would cope with the high temperatures. The PicoBRCKs run off lithium polymer batteries, which are generally designed to charge best between 0 and 45 degrees Celsius; the high temperatures might cause some power related issues later on during the pilot period.

Every project has its hiccups and this one was no different.  Airtel, the original network carrier we chose for the installs, was down during the time we were in Dadaab. We had specifically confirmed coverage and operability of the Airtel network on our first trip there, but it was not to be. Luckily, we were able to find sim cards from a different network provider and replace the ones we had.

The PicoBRCK can integrate to any sensor through a daughter board and supports sensors via SPI, I2C, UART, and General Purpose IO. For the UNHCR WASH project, we integrated one PicoBRCK to a chlorine and temperature sensor to monitor the amount of chlorine dosed per liter of water. We installed the second PicoBRCK to a hall effect sensor over the water flow meter as a nonintrusive way to digitally measure the rate of flow of water. For this pilot deployment, we tapped into the power being supplied to the chlorine doser. We ran cables from the generator room to the PicoBRCK and installed a 240V AC socket where we plugged in a 12V adaptor to keep the PicoBRCK power topped up. The waterproof PicoBRCK case made it much easier and convenient for the installs. We could have it mounted practically anywhere we needed to. For one of the units, we had to use a tree that stood close to the water meter! Future installs will take advantage of the PicoBRCK’s solar charging capability which will make the installation procedure even more straightforward.

On the third day of the install process, we successfully got both PicoBRCKs up and reporting to the cloud with viable data for the two-week pilot period. After the pilot period, we will install PicoBRCKs at nine other boreholes and hopefully have a positive impact on water consumption data at the complex.

Lion Guardians is a conservation organization that promotes cultural sustainability and coexistence between lions and people across Kenya and Tanzania. Their main camp, Naharbala Camp, is located right in the middle of Amboseli and isolated from the comfortable amenities that you find in urban areas.

A beautiful view of Mt. Kilimanjaro that motivated us to keep on working.

Our four-hour trip from Nairobi led us to a camp that relies on solar power to generate electricity for the camp’s infrastructure operations. Amboseli, a landscape of wonder, filled with a dry and sprawling grassland, scattered trees, and diverse wildlife. This was our destination on Valentine’s day this year, a team of three BRCK employees consisting of Robert (our driver), Jimmy (an electrical engineer), and me. Foregoing the day of love to solve a long-term connectivity issue, we set out early that Tuesday morning.

Upon arrival, we were welcomed by Dr. Leela Hazzah, the organization’s Executive Director, she explained to us the issue that had been plaguing them: for the past one year, the camp has experienced poor internet connectivity and has been on a satellite backhaul that has proved to be inefficient in terms of slow speeds and intermittent connectivity. Internet is an important tool for Lion Guardians when it comes to communicating with international partners and performing research work. The existing internet connectivity setup included a satellite antenna, modem, WiFi extender (Ubiquiti UniFi AP Outdoor), and solar charged batteries that powered the whole camp apart from the equipment.

The author pretending to be working while admiring the Lion doll. 

With the advent of 3G network in Kenya 10 years ago, a majority of areas in Kenya, including rural towns and remote areas, have access to fast mobile internet speeds. The Naharbala Camp has four Safaricom cell towers surrounding it and include Kinama, Imbirkana, Lengsime, and Amboseli Serena. The availability of adequate mobile network infrastructure provided BRCK with an opportunity to test out the BRCK at the camp. We installed the BRCK device with a GSM antenna and tested which cell tower to point to. The cell tower at Kinama provided the best Safaricom reception signal. In addition to this simple setup, we connected the existing WiFi extender to provide wide coverage across the camp.

Jimmy (BRCK) and Jeremiah (Lion Guardians) contemplating the best direction to point the GSM antenna.

With the setup in place, Dr. Leela and the rest of the camp were able to access 7Mbps internet and even make a Skype call, something we urbanites take for granted. The installation was a success and the BRCK team of three departed in the late afternoon, satisfied with a well done job.

However, two weeks later, the internet connectivity stopped operating and this prompted two more trips to Naharbala camp to identify the issue. We suspected that the issue was the mobile network signal and frequency. So we installed a GSM/3G signal booster but even this did not solve the problem. We came to the conclusion that the towers were transmitting on EDGE frequency (900MHz) and this would fluctuate to 3G (1200MHz) after a while and internet connectivity would resume. To our relief, Dr. Leela informed us that another conservation camp (focusing on baboons) within Amboseli was experiencing the same problem and that Safaricom engineers were scheduled to do repairs and maintenance at the Kinama cell tower.

At the time of publishing this blog, the internet connectivity remained intermittent due to the mobile network signal issue. BRCK’s goal is to connect Africa, but it’s also important for the backhaul infrastructure such as mobile or satellite to be stable and efficient.

Our new product, the SupaBRCK, ready to connect the rest of Africa and the world. 

BRCK has been known for developing products for the edge of the network and very remote regions of the world. Lately our products have been pushing even what we as BRCKers consider the edge.

One of our biggest themes is the “if it works in Africa, it can work anywhere.” And that was never more apparent to us than when we recently found ourselves on a very small outboard motor boat hopping from one Solomon Island to another. The size of craft did not warrant being in this ocean infamously called the ironbottom sound. “Ironbottom Sound” is the name given by Allied sailors to Savo Sound, the stretch of water at the southern end of The Slot between Guadalcanal, Savo Island, and Florida Island of the Solomon Islands, because of the dozens of ships and planes that sank there during the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942-43.

We were on our way there because the Savo Island School in 2016 is also the new home for a Kio Kit. Our most remote school in Kenya has been in the Kalama Conservancy and in an interesting play on words, the school in Savo is named Kalaka school.

Upon safe passage through to the island,  we were greeted by an amazing group of teachers and students alike. Savo island is beautiful, volcanic hot springs and rivers, palm farming and with a population of approximately 2000 people, the Kalaka school offers Primary, Secondary and Vocational training.

With no electricity and connectivity, getting access to research and technology for education through the Kio Kit becomes a major boost to the community and the future.

As we did the teacher training, it was apparent that our visit to the areas our products are used informs us on how to make a world class product but also localized enough to bring value at the regional level. For example; Content is a major aspect of the Kio Kit and education in general. Part of our commitment in the Kio Kit is to help communities grow. That being said, the growing pains of one community can differ widely from another. The Kio Kits in Africa have very good content on issues like cholera and sanitation, while the South Pacific Islanders were asking for more information on tsunami preparedness and diabetes awareness. While in Kalama we build for dusty conditions, in Kalaka we have to consider humidity and sea salt. Galvanization is now a new discussion in our UX and engineering departments. Going local helps us address local issues.

On this trip we also did visit a 2nd grade classroom in Canberra ACT region Australia, the contrast in classroom technology a mere 3 hours away from Savo island is mind boggling. But it is because of this that we are putting our best foot forward, in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, the Americas and beyond. Together we can narrow the gap in digital education, research and libraries around the world.

As we move forward, we also would like to recognize the amazing partnerships that we have on the ground and in the region without which this new frontier for BRCK would not be possible.

At BRCK we are fanatical about User Experience (UX) and Quality Analysis (QA). That is why last week, we took the fantastic 5 to Kajiado to spend a day with one of our BRCKs in the wild.

Kajiado is a town located 80 kilometres south of Nairobi, along the Nairobi – Arusha highway (A104 road). Local people are predominantly of the Maasai tribe and we consider it the kind of place that we build for. Though located just south of Nairobi, Kajiado is a nevertheless a challenge get to.

Our trip began at 8am, a mistake because rain, traffic and the “scenic route” turned a 1 hour journey into a strenuous 3 hour ordeal. Luckily, we came prepared with a pair of land rovers, as the road conditions deteriorated continuously and we were soon off-roading in some of the prettiest landscapes in Kenya.

Our amazing host and BRCK owner met us at a gas station in Kajiado and we followed him to their beautiful home where we were welcomed with freshly made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, yum. Originally from Texas, our hosts say Kajiado is similar to their home in many ways. Landscapes, temperature, rainfall, or lack thereof, etc…

Getting down to business, we ran several tests, from understanding how they unboxed the BRCK and the way our instructions flowed, to testing connectivity, set up, the cloud management system, and even comparing other connectivity solutions to the BRCK. We do this is because, as a 2 year old company, we need to keep designing and building for the future. Any intelligence we can get makes us smarter. Most importantly, unlike many Modem and Router Hardware companies, we build for the fringes of connectivity and work our way in. For us to say we want to connect the 800 million unconnected in Africa, we need to stay situationally intelligent.

After several hours of work, we went back into Kajiado to a restaurant called Texas where we had some of the yummiest Bar-B-Q. Any objections of comparing Kajiado to Texas were put to rest.

Our research in Kajiado has been the talk of the BRCK office for several days now and with those conversations we move towards a better BRCK. The SuperBRCK. Stay tuned.

The Rhino Charge is an annual off-roading competition in Kenya where racers are required to visit a number of checkpoints while traveling the shortest possible distance across difficult, trackless terrain, where speed is not a necessity although you have to complete the race before 5:30pm. You can see some of our coverage from last year and how we helped the Rhino Charge HQ get internet here.

Due to the ruggedness and remoteness of the event, the BRCK team sponsors a car and we use this opportunity to go test our connectivity in the wild (plus, it’s just a fun thing to do). This year the event took us north past the equator, 100 miles past Isiolo and 40 miles into the semi-desert region of Kalepo (Namunyak Conservancy) in Samburu, Northern Kenya. The drive there is beautiful but the distance and heat can take a toll on the vehicles. For those who follow our blog, we are sorry to disappoint, there will be no vehicular breakdown drama on this trip. The Landrover performed like a champ partly due to the relentless efforts of Reg to make sure the car was properly serviced and ready for the task.

BRCK CTO Reg Orton at the Rhino Charge 2015

The drive into the conservancy is amazing. When we got there we found a very upbeat crowd with everyone looking forward to a great race. There were two ways to connect to the internet, the first and closest to the race headquarters was Liquid Telecom’s satellite backhaul connectivity. They had an impressive show of technology and branding however as is often the case with connectivity at events the system kept getting choked due to the volumes of people trying to get on at the same time. The second provider was a special Safaricom tower 200 meters away from the headquarters that had Edge (2g) connectivity. We drove there and it was very interesting to see how many locals and event staff were huddled under a tree next to the tower surfing the internet.

A mobile phone signal where there wasn’t one before

Back at the campsite, the connectivity was even slower and no sooner had we turned on the BRCK did someone shout, “there is a WiFi signal here and it is very strong!” After dinner and around the campfire, we started discussions around the previous year Rhino Charge event, to up the ante, I told everyone that they can use the BRCK to watch the highlights from 2014 race.

We had pre-loaded the BRCK with a number of videos, including last year’s Rhino Charge as well as some other offroad racing videos. Several people jumped on and were amazed at the speed and quality of our remote data offering. One person asked whether the Rhino charge was the toughest race and we were able to watch different videos with the conversation talking about the difference between rhino charge and Superkarpata a European offroad 3 day challenge through a dozen countries.

Race day came on Sunday. We were up bright and early to visit the checkpoints as we chased BRCK vehicle (the #18 Range Rover) to provide moral support. Several hours after the race started we made our way to the “gauntlet”, where they put 3 checkpoints close to each other for spectator enjoyment. As we waited for the next car, a bunch of guys asked us why BRCK was here and the connectivity was slow and I run back to our truck and came back with several BRCK devices and the complaining guys were soon glued to their phones streaming content from our WiFi connection. Big win for team BRCK.

We soon relocated to the last checkpoint to welcome our truck at the finish line. We had our BRCK out so that we could follow the GPS coordinates of #18 and our connection was much faster than the available options at the checkpoint.

We were soon getting twitter updates of the race progress, other cars on fire, evacuations and finishers. 67 meters to the end of the race, our #18 car which was out of brakes, broken engine mounts, lost wheel nuts, the starter caught on fire, frying the whole electrical system and that was the end of the race.

To add to the excitement, just as we were getting this news on our car, car #64 finished the race just as the whole bottom end lit up on fire… two bottles of fire extinguishers later, they officially punched in their completion ticket. Crazy times indeed!

It was so nice to see all the competitors leaving it all on the field. I however was aware of the lack of native Kenyan spectators at the event. We should be aware that statistics have proven that conservation of any kind in any continent cannot be achieved by a select segment of the population. I hope that the Rhino Charge does more to get local spectators back to the race next year. See you again in 2016.

It has been approximately 5 months since I joined the BRCK team, and among some of the things I enjoy most is getting a chance to travel. I get to see what others think of our products and interact with them, listening to what features people would want among, see what works and what doesn’t in their world.

About three weeks ago, I got a call from the team that works at World Vision. They were looking for a solution to give internet connectivity to communities which would allow them to get connected to the rest of the world. With internet connectivity, the community will be able to access government services, access educational content and sell some of beautiful art work abroad.

At first I thought it would be pretty simple, get into a car and drive down. Now if you have been to Africa on safari, you know that you are going quite far if you are taking off in a land cruiser with two 90 Litre tanks.  This did not discourage me as I love seeing what the country has to offer.

So on Thursday March 12, we set off in the morning. Our first site visit was off to Kisapuk near Namanga. By “near” please note I mean that it is approx 40 KM from the Total petrol (gas) station in Namanga.

Kisapuk is a very beautiful place. I assure you pictures would not do it any justice. The community runs a school, greenhouse and a small market to sell their produce. Besides being a beautiful location, the people in the community are warm and welcoming, and they showed us a great deal of hospitality in our short time there.

After pushing the car to the wall on the all weather road, I quickly set up and got to work. The area is in a valley with a cell tower that is a repeater about 30 KM away.

If you grew up here, you have probably have heard stories from your parents or grandparents about walking long distances to get to school. I always thought these were amazing fables to make them look like super heroes. I must admit that reality dawned on me when there. School is a couple of kilometres from home, exams are done under the trees if you are lucky to get one. Worst of all you are detached from what is happening all over the world.

In Kenya, we have come to realise that most places with sparse population have either repeaters or cell towers that only offer EDGE. So I knew what to expect. For those of you who do not know, a repeater mostly carries voice technology. In some regions you would get some that carry data. Sadly in this region you would mostly get those carrying EDGE.

Luckily we understand our environment very well and I had carried just the right set of tools for the job. In this region only one cell carrier worked on this and after sometime I was able to get connectivity. There is nothing in this world that can relate to getting connectivity when out there. The ability to see something inspiring, share an idea with others, and get research material as and when you need it is mind blowing.

However, to serve a whole community on such a connection is close to insanity. Simply put I think this is not good enough. Time was now running out, we had to go to Mtito Andei and it was now 5 in the evening. I however left promising to get something a much better for them.

Back to our geography basics. Mtito is about 270 KM from where we are. At this point, the question was how would we make it there in good time. The only thing on my mind was a decent meal and a shower because we would be off to an early start the next morning.

If you know anything about our team, one fact is clear, we will always try new things. So I had been told there is a route that goes through the bush with basically trees or communities to mark where we were and thus where to turn.

Off we go into the bush

We somehow manage to make it through a whole tank of fuel in the bush. We made it to the town of Sultan Hamud. Which was impressive as we only got lost twice, taking tracks in the dusk, but somehow still finding our way to town.  We then proceeded to Mtito Andei .

Upon arrival, we called it a night.

Day two was easier on us. The school we were going to was only about 10 KM from the road. It was much easier getting a signal here. You’ll remember we are still talking about EDGE (2g connectivity) so it’s not very fast, but it does allow for a trickle of internet content.  If you are going to have a classroom of about 30 to 40 students connected to the internet, this is not the best option.

“Students in class working hard in class. I think the young fellow is being punished.”

If there is one thing that is clear, we can not take a sit back and wait for the mobile operators to realise that they need to provide country-wide 3G if we hope to get the rest of the country truly connected to the internet. We will need to come up with a solution that can work for us here and now. There are some ideas we have been working on in the office and I think it would be nice to get them into the last stage of testing and release them into the field. I can say at the most basic level, content caching is involved. The cost of fetching content from the cloud every time is too high especially timewise.

The sad reality is there is a whole generation not being exposed to what is happening all over the world in terms of content. My biggest concern is educational content. This is not fair in terms of having a level playing field.

It would be a dream come true to see them at the same competitive level with at least the rest of the country.

Thank you to the World Vision team!

Since I was a child I have heard stories regaled of South Africa. The modernity. The beauty. The ethnic diversity. Even though I remember seeing signs growing up in West Africa that said “Apartheid a bas!” ( English: down with Apartheid), I have always had a positive and idealized view of this great stalwart of the African continent. From my naive perspective, it was what the rest of us should aspire to realize in our own corners of the continent. I visited SA for the first time in the early 2000’s. It definitely had some African feel to it, however, the fear in those days was palpable. Entering a business was an ordeal of security checks. The malls had the same scanning equipment as an airport. Yet, in the leafy suburbs of Johannesburg, there was an amazing sense of tranquility, beauty, and progress. It was easy to do business with South Africans and their sense of optimism for their country – and the continent – was overwhelming.

Fast forward nearly 15 years and I find myself sitting in an altogether different country. While the roads are just as spectacular crime is still a problem – although the sense of fear is clearly diminished. Everything about this country screams modernity and progress. But the veneer is thin. What lies beneath the glossy shell is insidious, corrupt, and diseased. And it is getting worse.

In the few days that we spent in South Africa, we personally felt the pinch of the widespread power shedding that is going on due to insufficient, aging, and poorly maintained power infrastructure. We lost an entire day from our schedule because the Land Rover shop we were using removed the tyres from the wheels and subsequently were cut off from power and unable to remount them. As I spoke with the proprietor he shared that another customer had their vehicle completed but the shop could not raise the lift enough to release the locks that would allow the vehicle to be lowered. This is South Africa! A “european” country at the base of Africa. How could these kind of infrastructure issues be happening here? As I continued my dialog the old man told me that he was even considering buying a generator to keep up productivity. That would have been my first thought – given that our office and my house already have generators – but in this part of Africa that notion is foreign and frightening.

This lack of realistic perspective on the rest of the continent came up during our discussion with another South African technologist who is focused on the education sector. The problems that he has been dealing with are related to choosing HP over Cisco routing equipment for the schools where he works. Although I’m sure that is important in his context, these things mean nothing where we live. To his credit, this guy is traveling around southern Africa with his family and exploring the challenges that exist for education outside of South Africa. He understands the problem enough to have been very excited about BRCK. I sense that he is willing learn to adapt his thinking and will ultimately be very effective at solving the real problems that exist north of the Tropic of Capricorn.

While there are plenty of subtle (and often not so subtle) clues that this southern civilization is crumbling from the inside out, there is hope. And not just a hope for survival but a hope for a rising tide extending well beyond the smooth roads and superhighways.

During our time in Jozi we relied heavily on Uber for our transportation. I had never used this service and I was blown away by the convenience and reliability. During each ride I would query the driver with the same questions on how they liked driving for Uber, how they were doing economically, and their plan forward. What I found was a bunch of very hard working, polite, and intelligent entrepreneurs at various stages of the business lifecycle. Some were driving for the owner of the car and saving their money to buy their own car. One had just bought his first car. You could see the pride and optimism of this older gentleman as we shifted through Joburg in his new Toyota Corolla. This man had gone from being an employee of a metered taxi service to a driver of someone else’s Uber car to now being an entrepreneur in his own right. An inspiring story. The final driver that I used was driving a C-class Mercedes. He now owned a couple of cars and was working to manage a handful of drivers. He was driving that day because his previous driver had gotten into an accident and damaged the car. He struggles to find good employees but he was excited about the new guy who starts on Monday.

I absolutely adore these examples of the disruption that technology brings to business and the resourceful application of hard work at the points of disruption to create new opportunities, businesses, and jobs. As African technologists (particularly as BRCK), this is our real potential to have an impact and build a sustainable and prosperous community.

On Friday, Erik and I had the chance to sit down with a South African who is the fund manager for a very wealthy German technologist. Marc has a very down to earth and insightful view to technology and business in Africa. He sees beyond the glossy shell and recognizes the challenges that underly his own country along with the potential for the rest of the continent. It was odd for Erik and I to talk with an investor who didn’t need to be sold on the potential and opportunity for BRCK in Africa. Instead we focused on our real issue which is scaling production and distribution to meet the untapped potential for BRCK. Marc figures that we could place an advert in Joburg and sell a few thousand BRCKs overnight to South Africans who are frustrated by the intermittent power and unreliable connectivity – sounds more like Naiorbi than Johannesburg. Because he has some experience in telecommunication equipment and infrastructure, Marc seemed particularly excited about the idea for Supa BRCK. A weatherproof BRCK with multiple ethernet and multiple cellular connections that could serve as a critical component in building reliable corporate networks for African schools, business, and governments. It was reassuring and encouraging to spend time with someone who knows the realities on the ground, sees past the veneer, and is still excited for the opportunity to build African technology to solve African problems.

My favorite experience of the trip was meeting Marcus Watson who runs a BMW motorcycle repair business. We were referred to Marcus to help sort out some issues on my bike and get it ready for the return trip. Even though as a sole proprietor his schedule is packed, Marcus gladly took in my bike to get it prepped for the hard road ahead. I immediately appreciated Marcus’ knowledge on these bikes and his attention to detail. He knows these machines, how much abuse they can take, and how to keep them running reliably across Africa. As he poked and prodded my bike I got to hear his story of being a first-rate engineer in the power industry, getting retrenched as South Africa struggled to balance racial distribution in the work place, and ultimately turning his hobby into a thriving business. Although Marcus is saddened to see how poorly the power infrastructure is being maintained today, he isn’t the kind of person who gets bitter and then sits down to complain. Instead he took his talents and commitment to customer service and built a business and reputation as a world class motorcycle mechanic. He didn’t flinch at the fact that my bike was a bit Kenyan in its mixed component heritage and adapted to the changes that Rick and I have made to make this bike suitable for this trip. What saddened me in my conversations with Marcus is that he is considering emigrating to Australia. I have no doubt that he would find a wonderful life there but I am disheartened to think that Africa will be losing such an amazing resource. I hope one day that guys like Marcus are willing to travel north and set their sights and talents on the challenges facing the rest of Africa.

In the end, I came away from our trip still a little glassy eyed about our cousins in the south. I don’t think that I could live there but I certainly don’t mind visiting. I also think that there is a real opportunity for Africans to come together in this time where Kenyans have insights into dealing with poor infrastructure and South Africans have insights into proper engineering. It would be a great benefit to both sides of the Limpopo River to work together to solve challenges and problems that exist in each others back yards. I truly hope that these present and future challenges in South Africa will force this society to unleash their best and brightest onto the rest of the continent.

This weekend Reg, Philip and I took off for the Nguruman Escarpment, which is about a four hour drive outside of Nairobi. Our goal was to field test a BRCK with some friends of ours, Philip and Katy Leakey, who live in a tented camp at the top of the Ngurman escarpment, which is on the edge of the network.

Nairobi to Nguruman route, with elevation. Some areas at 31% grades.

The town of Ngurumani sits at the base of the escarpment, and you rise 3,000 feet on a rough dirt road in order to get to their camp. The Leakeys use solar and generator power, and the only way they can get internet is using either spotty 3g dongles, or very expensive (and slow) VSAT services. It’s not ideal, and for a couple who run some amazing businesses with global reach, that grow wealth in their Masai community, it’s a real problem to not be connected to the internet consistently.

The Journey

Early Sunday morning, we set out. I had done this drive in a car before, but wanted to see if I could do it on the motorcycle too, so both Philip and I rode out on bikes while Reg followed in the Land Rover. It’s an incredibly scenic trip, as you go through the dry, Masai country, over the sodium flats of Lake Magadi with their pink and white ponds, and into the back country. The views from the escarpment are majestic, and the air is clean and crisp, unlike Nairobi.

Coming down a steep and rocky hill overlooking Lake Magadi

Reg in the Land Rover at Lake Magadi

Philip crossing a stream

The good news was that we did the ride with no meaningful problems.

The bad news was that I was unprepared for just how difficult the climb up to the top of the escarpment is. In a car it’s tough, but 4 wheels give you some balance, as well as much needed traction when you get to the really steep grades that have a lot of sand beneath you. As if courting disaster, I also had forgotten to change my tires on my motorcycle to knobbies until too late, so was stuck going up in city tires. Not a good idea. There’s a part of the road that gets to 31 percent grade, with S-curves and if you slow down, you’re in trouble.

I ended up stalling out on this one particularly steep portion, and was exhausted trying to keep it upright, and push the bike forward as it dug itself deeper into the sand and gravel. Finally, Reg caught up with me and was able to help push as I got it going again, and we were able to get to the top without any more issues. The way back down was just a controlled slide, as the brakes helped, but you couldn’t actually stop yourself from progressing downwards. One particular S-curve remains engraved in my memory, since that’s where a cobra dropped from a bush next to me. Fortunately it was small, and wanted to get away from me as much as I did from it, so we parted amicably.

The Field Test

We carried with us an assortment of large and small antennas, and we were particularly keen to try out the new ones from Poynting Antenna in South Africa. We also brought the normal BRCK, Sandstorm case and our Wilson antenna amp (booster). Beyond that, we carried our standard medical kit, tools, SIM cards and water.

Using a Yagi from Poynting Antenna

The main antenna we used was the large, 1 meter-long, cast aluminium Yagi antenna by Poynting. It’s big, tough and not easy to pack around with you, but it gets the best gain. We were easily able to reach out and grab the signals from the mobile phone towers about 4-5 kilometers away, and we got 90% or 54dBi.

It turns out that you can get three mobile phone connections from the Leakey’s. Safaricom has a decent signal, but the tower that serves the people in that community has no internet connection, to that was a dud. Orange also has a tower, and supposedly the internet data connection does work on it, but it wasn’t a strong signal and we didn’t have any luck with it. Airtel, on the other hand, had a good signal and had a data connection.

Philip and Reg getting the BRCK working at the Leakey’s camp

Lessons Learned

While we had strong signal, we had two issues that we needed to solve, and only an hour to do it before we had to head back down the hill to make it back to Nairobi before dark.

First, we mainly use Orange and Safaricom internally, and didn’t have an Airtel SIM card with us. Fortunately Katy had one, so we were able to use it. This was an oversight on our part, and we’ll stock a couple of these Airtel SIMs in the future.

Second, the Airtel SIM had no credit on it. Since all of us carry phones that hold micro- or nano-SIMs, we had no way of topping it up either. An easy solution is that we’ll carry a simple phone with us that we can do this with in the future, but we also want to explore how we can enable this same top-up activity using the local (non-cloud) dashboard of the BRCK.

Third, that not all towers work, some give bad information. Just because you get a signal does not mean that you are connected to the internet, even if it says “Edge” or “3G” on your phone.

All-in-all, it was a good excursion, a chance to eat our own dogfood outside the comfort of Nairobi and the iHub. It was a reminder to be more prepared (in both the journey and the field test), and also a great opportunity to see some less well-traveled parts of Kenya.

The BRCKs view of the valley