Go West 2008

Go West

Plans are well underway to expand the coverage of the network in the Western suburbs of Adelaide beginning early 2008. Currently, Air-Stream boasts the largest community wireless network in Australia covering hundreds of square kilometers from Angle Vale in the North, down to O’Halloran Hill in the South.

The planned expansion will include a new site at Fulham Gardens along with major upgrades at Highgate Park, OHalloran Hill (VK5TTY) and Carrick Hill. Please keep your membership up-to-date, as this and other projects like it, have been made possible by memberships and donations, with all funds raised going directly to the network.

South West Upgrade Plans - 2008

Southwest Map
Current plans for upgrades in the South and Western Suburbs over the next two months for 2008 are as follows. In the map to the right, the orange lines indicate upgraded or new backbones and yellow circles indicate new or upgraded APs with improved coverage.

  • New Router Node at Fulham Gardens
  • Two new AP and antenna upgrades at Carrick Hill (better LOS)
  • New Skye to Highgate 802.11a Backbone replacing APANA
  • New Highgate to Fulham Gardens 802.11a Backbone
  • Upgraded Highgate to VK5TTY (OHalloran Hill) 802.11a Backbone
  • New Fulham Gardens to VK5TTY (OHalloran Hill) 802.11a Backbone
  • New Fulham Gardens to Seaton 802.11b backbone
  • New Melrose Park to Carrick Hill 802.11b backbone
  • New Superpass Omin at Melrose Park
  • Two new AP upgrades at Highgate Park East and West
  • New Superpass Omin at VK5TTY (OHalloran Hill)

Stage 1 - Complete

Stage 1 of the Go West plan is complete in preparation for the new site at Fulhum Gardens and the new upgrade at Carrick Hill.

stage1_highgate

Consequently Highgate Park was upgraded to support two new backbones, one to link to the new site at Fulhum Gardens and the other for the Carrick Hill.

Alix Install

This has meant that the old Senao APs where removed and replaced with a shiny new 500Mhz PC Engines Alix Board.

Antenna Install

Also the West waveguide was also taken down and replaced with 5.8Ghz dish which was aligned to Fulham Gardens.


Stage 2 - Complete

Stage 2 of the Go West plan is complete in preparation for the new sites in the west and the and upgrade at Melrose Park.

Carrick Hill from the gound
For Hi-Res 180 LOS Image 902.28 KB Click Here...

Great care has been taken to ensure this installation has minimum visual impact to this important heritage building.

Carrick Hill from the gound

The new upgrade has given new life into the Carrick Hill site, by not only offering better LOS for the Antennas as seen above, but also new equipment.

In goes the new

The older equipment was removed, which comprised of 500Mhz VIA Router, Minitar APs and some high gain slotted waveguides.

Take It all Out

This was all replaced with a new PoE system including the FreeBSD latest Air-Stream Router System, Atheros based wireless cards and supported on the newest 500Mhz PC Engines Alix Boards. Along with the high performance Superpass antennas located with better LOS

Router change-over

This installation was made possible through the generosity of the Management of Carrick Hill for providing the site and power for this project and the members of Air-Steam who have given their time and commitment.

The Carrick Hill Team


Stage 3 - Complete

An upgrade was successfully completed at Melrose Park on Sunday 2nd March 2008. The upgrade includes a new Omni antenna and the addition of a dedicated backbone to Carrick Hill. The upgrade will improve redundancy for Melrose Park, Carrick Hill and Pasadena, further improving access to the network in the area. Many thanks to Jeremy and Chris for the help.


Stage 4 - Fulham Gardens

Stage 4 of the "Go West Plan" has begun with work completed on the new Fulham Gardens site. This will not only help strengthen coverage across the Western Suburbs, but this and other sites like Torrensville, will help increase bandwidth and redundancy to the establishment of even more new sites in the West.

More information soon...