Hello
First off wanted to introduce myself. Name is Clayton W4CMB, I am a repeater owner here in Franklin Co GA and currently looking into starting a AREDN network.
I have thus far a single site that I could place some equipment and branch out from there. My goal is to have a backup data network that can span a majority of my county and can be interfaced via VOIP phone amongst a handful of Fire Departments. This would be laying the ground game for further backup emergency systems withing the county fire departments.
The water tower is about 125-150' tall and is on a small hill.
From some of the modeling shown below it appears a 2.4 M2 would cover alot of my area.
Question I have is how accurate are these maps?
If I want to go with a 2.4 or 5ghz what type of antenna arrangement options do I have?
I have so many questions dont really know where to start.
Im in the planning stage right now and just tryng to get the best idea what the range, coverage, speeds, cost will be.
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Starting AREDN in my County and needing Guidance
Thu, 02/25/2021 - 15:57
#1
W4CMB
Starting AREDN in my County and needing Guidance
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Andre, K6AH
I think I have seen these before. Where is the best place to buy these antennas? Possibly Used?
You mentioned a couple use case scenarios: backup data and VOIP. The speeds of wireless are going to be a bottleneck if you have massive amounts of data to keep synced up. It can be done, but not sure AREDN is the best use for that scenario.
VOIP works as well as the connection can be. The more hops (nodes) you put in between, the more packets will be lost. If all the remote nodes connected to a single node where you housed the PBX server, I imagine the call quality would be great.
Before you go down the path of figuring out what hardware you need, I would suggest writing up all the potential use cases. Not only will this help you justify the equipment in terms of what you need, but will also justify the cost.
For example, in our area our local fire department would be served well with quickly deployable live camera feeds during fire season. For that we need some sort of trailer, power, nodes, cameras, etc. On the other end, in the EOC they need software capable of viewing all those cams simultaneously. The local police department may want something similar for large events. The power company may want live camera feeds on critical infrastructure. The water department might want to monitor critical drinking water reservoirs. I'm sure with some imagination you could figure out a whole slew of use cases.
In nearby Irvine, California (http://n6ipd.org/), they setup nodes with VOIP phones at each of the high school locations. The high schools are their shelter locations. All those VOIP phones are connected to the police headquarters where staff is already in place to deal with major emergencies.
Personally, as a member of our local RACES division, I'm involved with planning out something similar for Anaheim, CA. We're moving along very slowly due to covid. At this point we're still in the exploratory phase.
I hope this helps you on your journey. Lots to think about!
---mark
AREDN provides the ability to do things you can't do over voice. For example:
- High speed ICS form and file transmissions (yes, you can use Winlink via FM, but it's SLOOOOOW)
- Live surveillance camera feeds
- Live chat
- Computer Aided Dispatch / incident management / reporting
- Asset tracking (including GEO tracking)
- VOIP phones / video conferencing
Basically you can do pretty much anything you would otherwise do over an IP network on the ARDEN mesh.I should have also stated that I am a Firefighter with the county along with Coroner. I have assisted with the emergency communications side of 911 for over 10 years.
Back to the antenna arrays.
How many arrays can a single M5 or M2 operate on?
How are most of you guys out west setting up your sites?
Im working with about 61 Meters of HAAT which is not great at all.
AREDN cannot be used for commercial or government purposes. The fact that you're on staff makes it appear as though that the comms would be for professional use. There's a fuzzy line between professional and amateur when the professional is also a licensed ham operator. Now I suppose if the entire fire department was comprised of volunteers, then maybe that's OK? I don't know. But I do know that "Emergency communications" does not equal "Amateur communications". Sorry, that I don't have any answers about arrays. Not sure what you mean by that.
Probably be best to stay away from this altogether for what I was hoping we could do.
Still doesn't mean I wont put one up for ham use just because.
I would recommend not starting out big. Start out small, with two or three nodes, and gain experience with the equipment and demonstrate it to served agencies.
"Back to the antenna arrays."
Cannot go 'Back to the antenna arrays' as this is the first mention. 'antenna arrangements' was mentioned in the original posting.
"How many arrays channels can a single M5 or M2 operate on? "
On the 2.4 GHz band there is one ham radio only channel at maximum 10 MHz bandwidth.
On the 5.8 GHz band there are
54 - 5 MHz bandwidth channels (I avoid this)
26 - 10 MHz " :-)
12 - 20 MHz " :-)
I hope this helps, Chuck
I meant to be asking about sector antennas.
From what I understand a standard M2 M5 is omin directional. Will a sector antenna not focus more of the RF in a general direction?
Almost like a wide angle type yagi?
What I am getting at I guess. If I am going to start out with a single node/ tower site what should I be looking at to put on the air?
In my mind something like the below would provide the best wide area coverage. Unless I am totally missing something.
"From what I understand a standard M2 M5 is omin directional. "
If you are speaking of Ubiquiti Rocket M2 and M5s...Rockets do not have an integral antenna.
Antennas for Rockets are ordered separately.
(Ubiquiti and independents) sell omnidirectional, sector (60, 90, 120, 180 degree), yagi, and dish antennas.
Please give more information on what you think a 'M2' 'M5' is.
Chuck
(A) "I meant to be asking about sector antennas.
From what I understand a standard M2 M5 is omin directional."
and
(B) "If I am going to start out with a single node/ tower site what should I be looking at to put on the air? "
Message 12: I spoke
(A) "If you are speaking of Ubiquiti Rocket M2 and M5s...Rockets do not have an integral antenna."
and
(B) "Enough radios and antennas to link with your existing network neighbors."
Messaqge 13: You spoke "The M2 M5 Rocket is the models I was looking at on ebay. "
We were talking antennas ... now we are back to radios. ??? I am confused.
The Ubiquiti model 'Rocket' 'M900', 'M2', 'M3', 'M5' are radios without integral antennas.
It is excellent that you came to this forum before purchasing equipment.
Sorry, Chuck
IMHO: Enough radios and antennas to link with your existing network neighbors.
"I have thus far a single site that I could place some equipment and branch out from there.
My goal is to have a backup data network that can span a majority of my county and
can be interfaced via VOIP phone amongst a handful of Fire Departments."
$0.02:
(A) Spanning a majority of your county with omni-directional coverage from a single site likely would work if
there were a relatively limited number of users and the bandwidth was reasonable (VoIP is low bandwidth).
Users would need to strive to achieve near line of site.
We have had AREDN networking hereabouts for six years and 99% of failed attempts to link was because they chose
to NOT install a device/antenna equal to or higher than the peak of their roof.
(B) Linking fire departments: Do the fire departments have towers for their radio systems?
Overall:
Have you considered other radio/antenna devices?
There are over 70 models from which to choose.
Rockets may be among the more expensive and more awkward to install.
Other new or used equipment may be better suited for your 2 styles of deployment (and cheaper).
I hope this helps,
Chuck
As you can tell I have no idea what I am talking about and just trying to get information on what will be the best most cost effective single site setup first.
My initial goal was to then branch out and setup more links on public safety buildings since I could get the ok on most stations. That has since changed.
I am still interested in installing a link at the site at the top of this post. I have since partnered with another local ham that is interested in setting up a UHF multi mode repeater and we are currently in the process of that now. It would be nice to be able to shoot internet from my office to the site (about .5 mi) away. But think I will have too much folage in the way.
Here's a link to our Device Selection tool (in Google Docs):
And here's a YouTube video on how to use it:
Andre, K6AH