G'day,
I've just finished setting up my antenna+AP, all psyched about joining the AS network, failed to pickup any nodes. I thought I would post and ask the pro's if they could suggest anything.
My build:
17dB "Intenna" from freenet antennas http://store.freenet-antennas.com/product_info.php?products_id=267&osCsid=74e8f8720ca6b5e03885b76368916ae9
UltraWAPv2 (90mW), attached via ~30cm pigtail.
Mounted on house roof in burton, approx 5m from ground.
There are intermittent trees surrounding the area and so I am probably shooting blanks, and the access nodes were just behind the beautiful foliage; but after spending days on research/planning/building/reconfiguring my network/and money, I dont want to give up without asking if there is any hope.
I am fairly close to several AP's (I run past parafield gardens AP... i think) and thought I had LOS to Uleybury (AFAIS), but cannot pickup even a glimmer of air-stream signal using vistumbler/UltraUSB on cantenna or "intenna", just a lot of private networks 55+ (great to see most people are using WPA/WPA2 now).
I also calculated LOS based on google maps/the members node db/and known tree lines. Maths said I would be fine however it wasnt the case. Is google maps terrain elevation accurate?
My questions:
Would a larger parabolic dish antenna help in this case? I didn't want the visual impact of the large grid but ... it would have been cheaper to get one.
Does the large number of local AP's reduce the overall signal of the air-stream AP's?
Should I just move house?
Thanks!
Common Mistake
Hi Sweets,
Welcome aboard and thank you for posting your information, as it helps everyone.
You have chosen equipment that is theoretically correct so top points for doing this on your own, unfortunately this set-up in the real world is only workable in areas where interference is low and you are within 5Kms LOS of your target AP. Unfortunately your area has very high interference levels. But I wouldn't give up just yet it maybe just pointing or raising the antenna.
But here are the standard recommendations:
1) The antenna should have at least 19dbi with have good directivity and small side lopes.
2) Check polarisation most Air-Stream APs are in vertical polarisation. - http://www.air-stream.org.au/Polarization
3) LOS is everything - http://www.air-stream.org.au/los
4) Wireless equipment receive sensitivity is more important than transmitter power, recommended RX would be 11mbps at -85 dBm or better
5) Transmit power must be maintained within 4W EIRP (TX x Antenna gain) e.g. 90mw is ok for 19dbi - http://www.air-stream.org.au/eirp
6) Antenna positioning, a directional microwave antenna is around 5 to10 degrees vertical and horizontal so adjust slowly left to right and up and down. Good signal software certainly helps be slow and patient.
Thanks for the suggestions
Thanks for the suggestions Robert.
I plan on retrying and adding more elevation to the survey. Also will try another site survey from a few locations, including driving directly under AP's and moving away to confirm "perfect scenario" LOS connections with my equipment.
Failing this, I will add some height and then finally look at a larger antenna :/
Cheers
Success! I was able to
Success! I was able to pickup a few AS AP's (Uleybury, Gould-Creek and Parahills) after doing a longer vertical site survey (my main problem).
I am now connected to Gould-Creek (signal @ -70db) with a lot of help from DrGeforce3 :)
In my excitement I setup a node in Penfield where I found excellent saturation of all above AP's (-75db or better from a quick survey) as well as EARC and Hillbank.
As some backbones seem to be experiencing high traffic, I thought I would connect both sites to Gould-Creek AP and do some further testing (hopefully provide basic web browsing to this 2nd site). Unfortunately I am now getting strange latency/packet timeouts on my first link (hopefully its a problem on my end though...).
If all goes well after a month of testing, I can setup an additional link to add some more redundancy to the network.
After a lot of messing
After a lot of messing around with the UltraWAP, I gave up - just not happy with the performance (noise filtering/pickup, receive sensitivity). And I had no way to determine noise levels!
I ripped out a wl500gpv2 board with standard minipci card and jammed it into the internal housing of my "intenna" (ironically it was an exact fit - both were exactly 182mm wide). Passive POE didnt work, but luckily I had a few DC-DC regulators from RC gear which take virtually anything and output 5v/3A (perfect).
Not wanting to brave the elements too much (coming off work after last nights stormy weather!), I quickly put up the antenna in a rough direction and went to test. Instant gratification, I immediately saw Salisbury North which was new (and definitely no LOS unless the AP is 50metres above ground - probably not). Furthermore, with the UltraWAP I was getting about 20 AP's, mostly garbage. with the Asus unit, I could only see about 10-12 but they were networks which I could actually connect to at usable levels. Strange that I can see Salisbury North and Gould Creek, and by drawing a line, EARC is exactly in the middle of these two.
Instead of -70db with the UltraWAP, I was getting around -62db, Noise floor was very high, leaving my SNR bouncing around 1-15! (Whoa!?) The link seems to be toggling between 5.5Mbps or 11Mbps though. Very pleased considering I went from 0.20Mbps to this.
Comparison before:
3-30ms, 8%loss, 25avg
5-20KB/s throughput
After:
1-30ms, 2%loss, 10avg
Unknown maximum but at least 60KB/s+ (I dont have any sites to test except those over the EARC <> Parahills limited link).
I dont mean to bash the UltraWAP unit, because it did work well - however it just didnt compete to the minipci card/asus router combo. I cant wait to upgrade to a routerboard and better quality NStreme compatible cards. I'M EXCITED! :D
I look forward to tuning and realigning the antenna to improve my connection even more. But now, sleep, after 24 hours up straight - I'm getting frail.
End of my blog post! :)