We are in the process of putting a node at a prime location in Bridgeport that should have a very good coverage. We are just waiting for the site manager to be available for access to the roof. We are hoping this node will stir more excitement in the area. My experience with AREDN has been great. The hardest thing we have come to is deciding what to use for an SSID that is meaningful and doesn't sound exclusive of other compatible firmware choices.
Ken
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Fairfield County
Thu, 01/14/2016 - 14:18
#1
NE1CU
Fairfield County
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haha. that's the beauty of it... YOU get to decide whatever you want to put there.
(although, if you are going to use part 97 only frequencies, the BBHN devices will not be able to see the AREDN nodes anyway, since they only cover part 15.)
But again, use what works for you. ("MESH" would seem fairly neutral) ;-)
Well we just put up two nodes in Bridgeport at the same site. They are about 150ft above ground and 350 ASL. A Bullet M2 with a 15db omni and a Nano M5 pointed WSW along the shore line. For the first test we went portable with a two Nanos, an M2 & an M5 about 5km out with clear line of site. Our link on 2.4 was weak and would drop out. The Nano M5's linked solid. We hope to go back in a couple weeks and maybe swap the Nano M5 for a Bullet M5 with an omni. Maybe try a different antenna on the Bullet M2. Then link the two nodes with a switch.
The only reports I have heard of good omni coverage have been Rocket's with the Dual Polarity omni directional antennas (expensive but apparently they work well according to a local group)
You really want that dual polarity, especially for major sites, if its expected to be a place users aim to its usually worth the investment. for dual polarity.
Sector type hardware (like the NanoStation or a Rocket + Sector antenna) can really increase quality of the links if you can aim a single direction and cover the user base.
No matter what though that dual polarity (like the NanoStation has) really does help.
I wonder how much the effect of local interference actually changes? Even tho the radio is on a different channel away from the interference, is there a change to the RF front end hardware making it more selective? Certainly the co-channel interference is reduced.
There really isn't any hardware to change to lock in and be more selective, the devices run very close to SDR style where software filters pick and choose the path to analyze and ignores the rest and optimized the error rare for the desired signals.
I can tell you personally have seen it in metropolitan areas going from channel 1 @ 20MHz to -2 @5Mhz made 20 mile links that couldn't even be seen before show up as semi solid links and links that were established jumped up in quality significantly. Part of that is the smaller width I admit, but even smaller width was giving us issues in other areas and the clear channels helped out drastically in making links happen.
I received similar word when I was presenting a week ago at HamCom in Texas that local groups had tried smaller width in various areas and it didn't solve the issue, going to the negative channels allowed them to actually make links.