So you want to get on Air-Stream? Great! Here's a little How-To for getting yourself connected to the network.

All Air-Stream connections are made up of 3 essential parts:

1. Some Wireless Gear
2. A Pole or Mast to mount the gear
3. Cabling back to your own network and power

In this guide we'll cover these three basic items as we walk through how Air-Stream-Modbury-North was setup from scratch.

There will also be a rough costing listed for how much everything cost to give you a realistic idea on what it costs to connect in.

1. Some Wireless Gear

Air-Stream uses 802.11a/b/g hardware to create their network. What is this you may ask? its 2.4ghz and 5.8ghz equipment.

If you wish to learn more about the wireless standards click here

The basic setup of an Air-Stream site is very modular, it consists of the following parts.

• A Routerboard
• A Wireless Card
• A Pigtail
• Some Coax with 'N' Connectors
• An Antenna of some description
• A Box for it all to go in

1. a. A Routerboard

Air-Stream moved from WRAP2 boards to RouterBoards a few years back, and the last of the WRAP2 boards were decommissioned recently. The change was implemented due to the easier to use interface of RouterOS and due to the higher compatibility with these boards. The other big benefit is what is known as 'POE' or Power Over Ethernet as you can see in the picture on the right, the far left ethernet port has 'POE' written on it. This enables us to power the board via a single network cable. So when you install the gear onto your roof, you only need a single cable running from the box to your house/shed as data and power operate over the same cable.

1. b. A Wireless Card

Wireless cards come in all shapes, sizes, frequencies and power ratings. The particular cards which are use in conjunction with the RouterBoard series of boards are known as MiniPCI cards. They are the same MiniPCI Cards which are often found in laptops. The particular cards which Air-Stream uses are suited to this type of installation rather than your home laptop, as they are generally too large to fit inside a laptop.

Air-Stream currently has 3 different frequency cards in use:

• 900mhz MiniPCI
• 2400mhz MiniPCI
• 5800mhz MiniPCI

Your home wireless operates on the 2400mhz (2.4Ghz) band and this is what all client access points operate in around the network. The specification which runs on 2.4Ghz is 802.11b and 802.11g.

Most of Air-Streams backhaul links operate in the 5800mhz (5.8Ghz) band. The specification which runs on 5.8Ghz is 802.11a.

The 900mhz cards are not widely used due to a couple of reasons, firstly in Australia we cannot run a full wireless "channel" as the Mobile Phone company's have commercially licensed bands which intrude on the 900mhz spectrum, and secondly the only available antennas which are actually feasible to install are not very directional, so there can only be one 900mhz link in a 20-30km radius otherwise there will be interference. Air-Stream currently has two 900mhz links in service.

To do some further reading on a particular type of MiniPCI card please go to the following links:

Wistron Neweb CM9 Atheros 802.11a/b/g mini-PCI

The Super Range 5 (SR5) 400mw 802.11a mini-PCI

1. c. A pigtail

For some more information on pigtails and connectors please click here.

We highly recommend speaking to someone from Air-Stream before purchasing any pigtails to ensure you purchase the correct connector as they are a little tricky to identify some times and there is nothing worse than getting all your gear and realizing it doesn't fit together!

1. d. Coax with 'N' Connectors

One of the key things to ensuring the signal from the Wireless card gets to the antenna correctly is the cable which links the two. The thinner the cable, or coax, the more loss there is. Now since wireless networking deals with such small numbers (in mW- milliwatts) any loss is a big loss. So using large 'N' connectors on large coax is the best way to ensure the least amount of loss.

Air-Stream uses 'N' connectors on LMR-400 coax. Now unless you are an amateur radio operator this will mean next to nothing to you and this is ok! Its just very thick insulated coax. Air-Stream actually sells it, crimped, by the meter. So once you work out where you are setting up, you can request some cable to be made to spec. Just email the committee and ask for some coax to be made up.

1. e. Antennas

There are four basic types of Antennas for wireless networking.

1. The Dish
2. The Omni
3. The Yagi
4. The Panel

Typically Air-Stream uses Dishes for long links and backhaul, while Omni's are used for Access Points.

For more information, and where to purchase, please follow these links:

2.4 GHz Parabolic Grid Antenna, 24 dBi

5.8 GHz Parabolic Grid Antenna, 26 dBi

2.4GHz 8dBi Omni-directional Antenna

Antenna Polarization

1. f. Boxes

So all of this gear we have just gathered needs to be housed some how as we want it to be as close to the antennas as possible to reduce loss. Typically for RouterBoards we have been purchasing boxes from Jaycar

SEALED DIECAST ALUMINUM ENCLOSURE - 222 X 146 X 55MM

However alternatives are wall boxes which have a door and hinges, it really depends where you are setting up. Air-Stream-Modbury-North uses the Aluminium Enclosures.

Once the box is purchased, holes need to be cut for Pigtail bulkheads to be mounted into and for a gland for the network cable. This can be done with a drill, a dremel, whatever, as long as it is the right size for the pigtail bulk head to fit tightly and seal properly.

The Aluminium lid has a rubber seal so the entire box is sealed and weather proofed.

Above: Coax with 'N' Connectors

Above: An array of 2.4 and 5.8ghz dishes (2.4ghz dishes have the White Semicircle looking dipoles/tips)

Above: A typical Aluminium Enclosure with a single dish connected

2. A Pole or Mast to mount the gear

So all of the gear we just went through needs to be mounted onto something. Typically we used a Pole or Mast, but there are some window mounts available for some gear.

In some rare cases we are able to utilize the existing TV antenna pole, which enables us to skip the mast installation all together!

However most sites require installation of some kind, so we will now step through and follow the installation of Air-Stream-Modbury-North!

Now this installation is an Internally mounted Roof Mast. Meaning its actually mounted inside the roof and pokes out the roof, replacing a tile. This installation requires no Guy-Wires.

So what was purchased to so such an installation?

• A length (6.5m) of 48.3mm Galvanised Tube with 3.2mm Thick Walls.
• A Tile Replacement Kit
• 3x 150x90mm 10mm Thick Angle Iron
• 1x 35mm length of wood
• Bolts, Screws and Lock Nuts
• 1x End Cap for the Tubing
• 3x Ubolts from JayCar

And that's it, seems easy right? :)

The installation starts by scouting the area in the roof to check for mounting locations and areas of interest (cross beams etc)

Once all measurements were taken, the gear was the purchased.

Now its installation time!

So we start by mounting the angle iron to the trusts in the roof, which is where the poll will mount to.

This is where the plank of wood went, to strengthen the base that the pole will be sitting on.

Now once all of the brackets are in place, its time to prepare the pole to drop into the roof.

The pole needs to be cut to length (In this case, 4.5m), the end cap needs to be put on and the tile replacement boot slipped on before you take the pole up onto the roof. This ensures all you are doing is dropping the pole in while standing on tiles.

This is the tile replacement kit. It is a sheet of Aluminium with a rubber boot mounted into it. It is completely sealed to ensure no water will pass through. This completely replaces one tile. So later if you wish to remove the pole from the roof, simply take the pole out and put your original tile back. No modifications necessary.

Simply cut the rubber boot to size. There is markings on the rubber showing where to cut for what size pole.

Now make sure the end cap is securely on, and push the rubber boot over the end, and leave it near the top of the pole, as this is the last thing we will slide down to finish off the installation of the pole.

Now with the help of friends, slide the pole into the roof, and slot it into the Ubolts which are attached to your brackets. Get all ubolts around the pole now and roughly fasten, so you can make adjustments to the pole before securing the pole in place.

Finally once all ubolts are secured, slide the aluminium tile replacement down the pole and underneath the row of tiles above it. There are instructions written on the aluminium on how to install correctly.

Once all tiles and slide back into place, all brackets are secured, you are done!

So now that the pole is all installed you can jump on your roof and secure your air-stream hardware to your pole.

Air-Stream-Modbury-North is starting out with 2x 2.4Ghz connections. One for a connection back to Air-Stream-Athelstone and one Omni antenna.

Just an example of what the box looks like when open.

The Box, 2.4ghz Dish and Omni Antenna's all mounted to the pole.

What it all looks like completed up on the roof!

So that covers the basic installation of the wireless hardware. Now onto the cabling!

3. Cabling back to your own network and power

Cabling your new installation is probably the easiest part. All that is required is that you get one Cat5/Cat5e/Cat6 cable back to your own network switch where it can plug into a PoE (Power over Ethernet) Adaptor and then into your network.

The PoE adaptor helps cleanly split data from power. It has two ethernet (RJ45) sockets and one DC socket. They are all clearly labeled on the top of the adaptor and makes for a very neat looking installation.

We typically use 24v power supplies on the RouterBoards as it ensures that if there is a current drop over the distance the board will still operate (As they operate on 12v - 36v). The 24v Plug Packs are available from Jaycar.

As you can see, the cable simply just pokes back into the roof from the box which is mounted on the pole.

So now just cable tie the cable to the mast inside the roof to keep it neat and tidy, and run the cable back to your computer room/network switch.

As you can see, it all plugs in nice and neatly and that's it, your Air-Stream installation is complete, your routerboard is powered, your network is connected, now it just needs fine tuning and software configuration and its done!

Summary

So in summary, the hardware installation of an Air-Stream site is very easy, everything just clips and plugs together, depending on your installation there's not a huge amount of engineering that is actually required and once your hardware is in and alive you can get someone to come help configure the software side from the comfort of your computer room.

Total Cost:

Thanks to DrGeforce3, Blue18 and Anthony for Help and Photos.