Our project is using Ubiquiti / Mikrotik 802.11A/G and sometimes N equipment, international versions that can run in the ham bands. AREDN seemed to lack a TDMA protocol last time I checked so wouldn't be good for higher traffic cases or to keep low packet loss. I'm trying to keep the space diversity in-radio as often the radios can switch between streams in <1 second, while most networking designs that use multiple radios for diversity (e.g. OSPF) can take seconds to a minute to switch, in some fast-fade cases that can cause prolonged annoyance due to constant switching.
On Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 10:17 AM Brian Webster <i...@wirelessmapping.com> wrote: > Which equipment are you using in the ham bands? Have you looked at the > AREDN project? https://www.arednmesh.org/ They use mostly Ubiquiti gear > with new firmware loads to move the radios to the ham licensed portions of > the bands away from unlicensed. The rocket AP’s are one of the models that > can load the firmware. Can you achieve what you want by using multiple > antennas on a rocket AP? With the AREDN firmware the radios are cheap > enough that you could do frequency diversity by having both 5 GHz and 3.5 > GHz radios between the sites or if desired 2.4 GHz (in the licensed ham > portion of the band below unlicensed) or even 900 MHz (of which ham are > primary licensed over unlicensed users with a lot more power allowed). I am > a fan of the AREDN stuff because of the clean spectrum available and that > it doesn’t bother the WISP deployments. We have been using it for short > haul temp stuff like remote video feeds on race courses for public safety > events. It is a true mesh platform so if your sites are able to see more > than one location from the tower and a particular link goes down, it will > re-route traffic on its own. > > > > > > > > Thank You, > > Brian Webster > > > > *From:* AF [mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Colin Stanners > *Sent:* Monday, August 27, 2018 11:53 PM > *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group > *Subject:* [AFMUG] 5.8Ghz / hackable 5.9Ghz (for hams) spatial diversity > on the cheap? > > > > In our province there is a wide-area analog voice ham repeater system > that's really old-fashioned; some of the radio gear is older than I am. > Some more progressive members are pushing to have IP backhaul at all sites. > The 2.3Ghz / 5.9Ghz donated-wifi-gear-hacked-to-ham-frequencies group of > which I'm a main tech has started building a relatively impressive IP > network in the Winnipeg area and so I've been asked to prepare suggestions > for the 5.9Ghz IP backhaul upgrades. > > > > The big cost difficulty is doing spatial diversity; there are many longer > links that will definitely require it for reliability through the fade > season. At my fulltime WISP job, if the budget is $10-15K/link I'll just > put in a PTP670 with spatial diversity or 11Ghz radios with 4ft dishes and > things are great. But being a nonprofit ham group, this entire project of a > dozen+ links is hoped to be <$10K at most (with some donations) for > hardware... That's a lot harder. > > > > So I'm trying to find if there are any radios that are good at spatial > diversity like the Orthogons, but cheap (prefer <$200/radio, $400 max?), > and either support 5.9Ghz or are "hackable" to it (while supporting ham > requirements e.g. callsign advertisement). Speed is not very important. > > -PTP650/670 way out of price range, PTP450x, PTP550 too. > > -AF5X did not do spatial diversity in my tests. > > -AF5XHD I have never tested for SD, even if it does work the radios are on > the expensive side > > -ePMP connectorized I like as a cost-effective platform, but it's not > advertised for spatial diversity, and the firmware had some distance limits > > -general Ubiquiti wi-fi I've never tested for spatial diversity but is > worth a try > > -Mimosa platform I've never touched but probably worth researching. > > -Orthogon PTP400s I've used extensively, they are cheap now (used) and do > spatial diversity great, but aren't hackable to 5.9Ghz. And as the hardware > gets old, there will be failures. > > > > Any other suggestions? > > > -- > AF mailing list > AF@af.afmug.com > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >
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