I've been playing a bit with an Ubiquiti Bullet M2 in Loveland, near Centerra. Is anyone else out there?
Someone told me 5 GHz is a better bet, less competition than on 2.4 GHz. I'll probably get some gear for that at some point, but 2.4 is what I had already.
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Loveland Activity?
Sun, 02/03/2019 - 19:35
#1
N6RFI
Loveland Activity?
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Hi N6RFI.
I'm not far away in Longmont. Recently I acquired a Ubiquiti Rocket M2 and installed the AREDN software on it. I'd like to try connecting with you. Unfortunately, where I live I'm surrounded by buildings and can't put an antenna on the roof. I got a RocketDish 2G24 antenna with the idea of driving to a high point and aiming the dish at a node in a known location. I need to construct a portable mount for the dish and figure out how to run the equipment off a battery. Would you like to coordinate a test, maybe the weekend of Feb 16-17? If your setup is portable, perhaps we could meet in a park and establish a mesh in close proximity, then move the nodes farther apart and see how they do.
Cheers,
Scott
W6SDD
73,
Gary, WB5PJB
Hi Gary.
Thank you for the info about good setup spots. In Google Maps I was able to find the spot you mentioned on the east I-25 frontage road a bit north of County Rd 38. When I have got portable dish mount and power figured out, I would certainly like to try connecting with your node. What sort of antenna would you use on your end? A sector antenna?
73,
Scott
W6SDD
We would need some sort of communication application to actually communicate (beyond just getting a connection established.) I can have MeshChat loaded on the nodes for texting, or I could also throw an IP camera on the node so you could see video. I also have a Grandstream VoIP phone that can be called directly using its IP address (no VoIP server required), so that might be an option to try if you had a VoIP phone also. Or, use TeamSpeak or something similar on a laptop.
Anyway, weekends work best for me, so perhaps we can setup a schedule when you are ready and the weather looks like it will cooperate. You can email me at my callsign at arrl.net if you want to communicate directly.
73,
Gary, WB5PJB
I'm located in SW Loveland and currently using a directional antenna. You'll find my Bullet M2 is pointing to the North yet I can easily move it to try to match up with someone.
btw - can you direct me to a good external omni antenna?
Thanks
Carl
I couldn't tinker with AREDN for a long time due to many conflicts for my time.
Yesterday I setup a PowerBeam in my yard pointing at Horsetooth Mountain west of Fort Collins. It yielded a good connection to KE0NVB-CARBBN-CML-2 and KE0NVB-CARBBN-CMS. Those should cover a wide area so this may work well. The downside was clicking on the links for those nodes in the Current Neighbors section results in sites not found. Something is up with name resolution, but I'm not sure if that's an issue in my computer or my AREDN device.
At least now I know there is a good path, so I can look into a permanent installation that won't freak out the HOA. All I did yesterday was place the dish on a stand in my yard. There will be some trees in the way, but I'll just have to deal with that.
Hi. It's good to see mesh interest in Loveland and Longmont. For about 10 years I operated three nodes in the Berthoud area on 2.4 GHz. One was an omni with about 6 miles range if line of sight; one was a dish linking to a Boulder node; one was a dish linking to the Christ Mountain site northwest of Loveland. I've removed the north and south dish links because the distant nodes were discontinued. I still have the omni node in case it would be helpful as a bridge between Loveland and Longmont. When weather improves, I can also elevate the antenna another 10 feet. SSID is AREDN-10-v3 with hostname W0AIR-7. At one time, I ran a Team Talk server on the omni node, and could turn that on again if there is any interest. 73, Jay Email w0air (at) arrl.net