Air-Stream-CLG Upgrades

Over the past week, Air-Stream-CLG (Colonel Light Gardens) has undergone several upgrades to improve its throughput to the rest of the network and also its local coverage area.

Upgrades included:
-Switching from a Mitsubishi R100 to a Routerboard RB433
-Switching from a Minitar MNWAPB to a R52H 350mw minipci card to drive the ~8db homebrew 2.4ghz omni
-Extra height on the omni to improve coverage (800mm was added to the mast as that was the only pipe I had available.)
-Switching from an old AT PSU to a Jaycar 24v 1.5A plugpack to power the RB433 over PoE.
-Jaycar Diecast Enclosure to replace the painted biscuit tin enclosure.

Here are a few pictures of the new setup:
Via Internet: http://dorifto.hopto.org/wifi/pix/_Antennas/AS-CLG/v2.0/
Via WiFi: http://10.114.0.33/wifi/pix/_Antennas/AS-CLG/v2.0/

CLG's backbone is now to Air-Stream-Pasadena2 rather than Pasadena1 due to the support of the nstreme protocol on Pas2 which allows higher throughput. Signal strength is around -74dbm with noise floor around -95, using a modded pacmon 19db grid and a SR2 400mw minipci.
Speeds to the rest of the network range from 200KB/s to 1MB/s with frequent dropouts. This may be due to the high activity of wifi in the local area and also the high noise floor. Hopefully the system can be tweaked to improve performance and stability.

The omni is now picking up approximately 28 access points using the R52H and extra 800mm height, compared to the 14 access points received when it was operating on the Minitar.

During the alignment of the antenna a quick stumble was undertaken, revealing that several Air-Stream APs such as Skye, Carrick Hill 1&2 and also Melrose Park were able to be received. Skye's link was rather poor at a maximum signal of -90dbm. This could be improved with the use of a 25dbi grid, however I think that could be too much weight for the mast given that there is a fair bit of sway during light winds and there are only 2x 19dbi grids & an omni on the 3.8m mast at this time.

Overall the install went smoothly and hopefully with a few tweaks it'll all be running nicely. Also if anyone is in the area, please let me know if you can stumble Air-Stream-CLG!

Cheers, Drift