The Oregon site Intel Emergency Amateur Radio Service (IEARS) team is about halfway through development and deployment of an AREDN mesh network at the four main Intel Corporation campuses in the Hillsboro and Aloha, Oregon communities.
This mesh network consists of a combination of Ubiquiti Rocket M3's, NanoStation M3's, and NanoBridge M3 tying the Aloha, Ronler Acres, Jones Farm, and Hawthorn Farm campus Emergency Operations Centers together. Resources include a MeshChat server and Winlink RMS gateway. We hope to add some form of VoIP telephony as well.
The higher node location on top of Ronler Acres uses a 120 degree sector antenna to tie together the Aloha, Hawthorn Farm, and Jones Farm site. It is also aimed across the east area of downtown Hillsboro to enable connection to government and non-governmental agencies which may wish to connect into the IEARS mesh. Some very preliminary testing indicates that a good path exists to Tuality Hospital which is a high rise in the middle of downtown Hillsboro. This would be an excellent distribution point to various agencies in the downtown Hillsboro area.
Another higher node will be installed at the Jones Farm campus co-located with the 444.975 MHz repeater antenna. This node will also use a 120 degree sector antenna aimed more to the southeast to connect to the Ronler Acres and Hawthorn Farm campuses, but some additional coverage of the downtown Hillsboro area is anticipated.
The mesh is currently operating on 3465 MHz at 5 MHz bandwidth. As this mesh is still under development, the frequency and bandwidth may change once the nodes are all installed and stabilized.
We did get a chance to exercise MeshChat on the AREDN mesh during the Oregon statewide Simulated Emergency Test last week. While the Winlink RMS gateway was out of play due to the rules of the scenario (loss of Internet) we did use AREDN to transfer multi-megabyte still photos and HD video clips of emergency response scenarios between the EOC's. It was a good opportunity to show team members what AREDN could do, and brainstorm how we could improve its integration into the EOC's.
73's,
Collier
NM7B
This mesh network consists of a combination of Ubiquiti Rocket M3's, NanoStation M3's, and NanoBridge M3 tying the Aloha, Ronler Acres, Jones Farm, and Hawthorn Farm campus Emergency Operations Centers together. Resources include a MeshChat server and Winlink RMS gateway. We hope to add some form of VoIP telephony as well.
The higher node location on top of Ronler Acres uses a 120 degree sector antenna to tie together the Aloha, Hawthorn Farm, and Jones Farm site. It is also aimed across the east area of downtown Hillsboro to enable connection to government and non-governmental agencies which may wish to connect into the IEARS mesh. Some very preliminary testing indicates that a good path exists to Tuality Hospital which is a high rise in the middle of downtown Hillsboro. This would be an excellent distribution point to various agencies in the downtown Hillsboro area.
Another higher node will be installed at the Jones Farm campus co-located with the 444.975 MHz repeater antenna. This node will also use a 120 degree sector antenna aimed more to the southeast to connect to the Ronler Acres and Hawthorn Farm campuses, but some additional coverage of the downtown Hillsboro area is anticipated.
The mesh is currently operating on 3465 MHz at 5 MHz bandwidth. As this mesh is still under development, the frequency and bandwidth may change once the nodes are all installed and stabilized.
We did get a chance to exercise MeshChat on the AREDN mesh during the Oregon statewide Simulated Emergency Test last week. While the Winlink RMS gateway was out of play due to the rules of the scenario (loss of Internet) we did use AREDN to transfer multi-megabyte still photos and HD video clips of emergency response scenarios between the EOC's. It was a good opportunity to show team members what AREDN could do, and brainstorm how we could improve its integration into the EOC's.
73's,
Collier
NM7B
Andre, K6AH
73's,
Collier
NM7B
We have a Mesh networking tech NET on 145.290 WA7ABU repeater every Thursday at 1900. Please join us.
We currently have 6 fixed stations using NSM5 and NSM2 nanostations, and Rocket M5 sectors, and four mobile stations using trailer hitch mounted military poles to support nanostations.
Not all nodes have been connected to the WAN for location updates, but we are using Ch 177 and 10 MHz width for our 5 GHz stations. We use Ch -2 and 5 MHz width on 2.4 GHz. You will see some of our nodes on the AREDN live map.
We are still having trouble getting hams connected due to our trees and topography. We have so many trees in Salem, so range is very limited in town.
We are looking to connect the dots, but have at least 30 hams interested in getting nodes online.
We have been sharing some of our progress on Salemmeshnetwork@groups.io
-Brett
KG7GDB
Part of my learnings in deploying our AREDN mesh is the same thing you observed: We love our abundant tree population in Oregon, but they make it a real challenge to get a microwave signal path down to anything higher than about two stories off of the ground. The lowest working node location I have at this time is the Jones Farm EOC node, which is on top of a second story roof of a commercial building, and it's only working because the path runs across the Hillsboro Airport, so i have a good mile plus of absolutely no obstructions. The new Jones Farm node to co-locate with our 440 MHz repeater will be about three times higher. During a training session about AREDN, I joked that our sites in more arid states like Arizona may have much better luck with finding usable paths.
Another technique I will be deploying at our Hawthorn Farm campus is to place a Rocket M3 and omni antenna on the roof to tie into the mesh then rely on near-field coverage to serve ground-level nodes. I use this method in my office to reach the Ronler Acres node even though the sector antenna is aimed away from my office. i can actually get a stable link through the brick exterior of our building and go up eight stories to the rooftop node.
73's, and wish you the best of luck with deploying your AREDN mesh!
Collier
NM7B
Ocassionally, on the evenings there is a net, one of the fixed stations
enables 'Allow others to use my WAN' for the evening to allow nodes
not otherwise internet connected to 'Upload data to AREDN Servers'.
Chuck
I finally got around to running the oms.exe tool and got our four 3 GHz nodes in Hillsboro posted. It took a bit of thinking to figure out how to do this, then realized that the RMS gateway on our AREDN system was the exact configuration needed.
Thanks to Darryl for the OMS tool!
73's,
Collier
NM7B