I have a pair of AirGrid M5's with the 27db screen grid on 5 ghz that were left over from another project. I was wondering if someone else in the area would like to link to me with these? I am in S. Cal northern Rancho Cucamonga at about 2000 ft. elevation. My address is correct on QRZ.com.
Gary W6RYO
Hi Gary, welcome to the group!
Are your AirGrid's the XW models or XM models?
How do I tell which version it is?
The AirOS status page will show the AirOS version. "XM.5.?.?" or "XW.5.?.?". If these are older devices, more likely to be XM and supported by AREDN. If these are fairly new devices, some possibility to be XW and no support.
It is XW V5.5.6
Does this mean I can't use these units. They are under a year old.
Unfortunately, there is a bug that affects these 'XW' devices and the entire OpenWRT community (that AREDN is based on). The symptoms: the physical port stops working (in hours) and there's no way to communicate with the device except wirelessly. It has not been resolved to date and something we will look more intently at after the 3.15.1.0 upcoming release. The only 'XW' device that works at this time is the 5Ghz NanoStation M5 (because it has different chipset around the physical port).
the units I have are available to do testing on if the developers want to use them.
Gary, check out http://ocmesh.org . There's details to connect to a 5Ghz node on Pleasants Pk (above Corona). You should have no problem connecting with the 27dBi grid. It should just be a matter of the link quality. This is 24.9 miles with clear line of sight.
Joe AE6XE
Great, when I learn more I will experiment. I should have line of sight from here.
Gary, I can confirm line of sight :) . The lighting was good for the 25 mile view from Pleasants Pk this morning :). Can you spot your house?
These pictures are looking straight north with Ontario Airport in the 22x zoom pic. Gary's house is just on the other side, across the left end of the runway.
Joe AE6XE
Did you see me waving?
Just for kicks here is my ground level view of the peak.
I hope I can get these units working.
I was told that with the latest firmware the XW problem is fixed. With that I have been reading what I can and does anyone have a direction to point me for a newbe? I understand networking but I need a primer or such for things like how I get an IP for my unit? Should I assign an issued static address or is it dynamic? Once I have this all figured out I can route it into my network and be fire walled from my computers anf my WEB access. I am continuing to read and hope to do some testing soon.
Thanks all
Happy Turkey Day
Gary, there have been promising reports for XW hardware support. I have a Rocket XW and Loco XW devices being tested now. In the past the ethernet port would lock up over night. Now we have one report that after 2 days a node become unresponsive. There is indication of improvement, but there is still something going on to get to the bottom of. Once a workaround or resolution is confirmed and/or discovered, it will take a few months for the AREDN team to put into an experimental or release. XW support is not in the current 3.15.1.0 release train with experiential downloads available, except the Nanostation M5 XW. Some good signs, but jury is still in deliberations...
Joe AE6XE
Please note that the issue was always sporadic, reports of 2+ days were seen in the past as well. There is no reason to get excited at this time.
When our firmware supports more devices the following page will be updated http://www.aredn.org/content/supported-platform-matrix
A good kernel programmer could probably knock this out quickly... Always willing to have people contribute to the solution code of kernel on this.
OK, I tried an ARDEN firmware update using "AREDN-3.0.2-ar71xx-generic-ubnt-bullet-m-squashfs-factory.bin'
I choose the file ok but when I try to upgrade I get an error "Firmware image check failed: Error Code -6"
I tried downloading a second time with no luck.
I wrote the old firmware XW v5.5.5 build 18861 and get the same result when I try to install the AREDN firmware.
Forgot to mention, I got GOOD GOOD with the test program.