As a mental exercise (for now), I am looking at setting up a backbone of ~18 point to point links ranging in distance from 5 miles to 35 miles. These links are in remote areas and connect ridgelines/hilltops which make good repeater sites. These sites are typically >=1500 feet above the surrounding terrain. I am interested in determining which links can be served by "regular" FCC Part 15 rules and which need a Ham license. As I understand it, these routers are using digital modulation of a single channel, not "frequency hopping".

I would like to confirm with you all that the big thing I need to pay attention to for Part 15 compliance is 15.247 (c) (1) (i-ii), and 15.247 (b) (3). Specifically, in the 2.4 Ghz band, I need to reduce the maximum power (30dBm) by 1dBm for every 3dBi that the antenna exceeds 6dBi. In the 5GHz band, the maximum power is 30dBm regardless of antenna.

So in the 2.4Ghz band, it's the combination of power and antenna which trigger the need to use Part 97 rules.  In the 5Ghz band, the need to use Part 97 rules is determined solely by power.

Secondly, I would like to get a couple of identical radios and an assortment of antennas to probe the performance on various links. Do you have recommendations as to which radios work best, and/or which antennas perform well with them? 

Eventually, I will need to investigate performance for an omni antenna at each of the backbone nodes, connecting (probably) to a mobile/transportable high gain antenna. One thing at a time.

Thanks for your advice!!

> Never stop and restart networking during a contest! It will corrupt up your logs.

1. It's Field Day.  Expect your network to stop for any one of a dozen reasons.

2. Why use a program that does this?  Having a corrupted electronic log is worse than using paper logs.

Mark K5LXP

Albuquerque, NM

Hello All Volusia County Hams,

The Daytona Beach Amateur Radio Association will have their 2015 Field Day at the Volusia County Fairgrounds

3100 E New York Ave

DeLand, FL 32724

We will have several mesh nodes setup and will be demonstrating HamChat, IP video and VOIP.

Have a great Field Day

KS4GD

JON

The post with the old URL got me too. The link in the menu to the left seems to work though.

http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/googlemapped-mesh-nodes.html

Thinking about how I might use the mesh myself, then looking at how my organization uses technology for incident response, I have come to believe that support of land mobile radio (PTT radio) on the mesh is a key feature.

Personally, I want to wander around in the woods with a little 5W handheld and still have my signal get out. My organization relies heavily on land mobile radios (not part 90, since we're the Feds, but similar) in sparsely populated areas. Our CIO has made public statements to the effect that FirstNet is an interesting thing to keep an eye on, but since support of land mobile radio is not on the road map its not likely something we can use anytime soon.

My mesh related desires would be to try and establish a set of fixed mesh nodes, to which a mobile mesh node could connect. A set of some or all of these should support a low power transceiver with a Radio over IP controller. This segregates the architecture somewhat, into "IP network" and the more traditional "radio".

Beyond the simple ability to receive and transmit, the system needs some way to route and receive calls. Simple if you're sitting at a computer console, clicking on the transceiver you want to activate. Harder if you're just keying the mic on an HT in the woods. The solution will probably involve DTMF "dialing". Ideally, I would not have to know where a person is. If I could just say "go find xy7zwq" the system should route the call. However, this requires a way to uniquely identify each radio connected to the system. Quite a lot of utility could be had just by being able to specify default behavior and allowing manual dialing of RoIP enabled nodes.

I don't have much experience with VoIP/RoIP or mesh for that matter. What I've seen on this site is very telephone oriented (radio->phone patch->voip->mesh). Do you know of any effort to make an integrated RoIP gateway/software defined radio?

Thanks for all your work on this!

Bryce

Has anyone here had a chance to try the new Icom WLAN radios yet? On the Mesh?

http://www.icomamerica.com/en/products/landmobile/ipsolutions/ip100h/

How do I setup asterisk to allow a call from a PBX extension to an ip address not connected to the pbx?

I see a link on the web page for a google map of existing mesh nodes which doesn't work.

Why bother creating a static map that somebody needs to keep current? it would be easier to either setup an aprs beacon announcing the presence of a mesh node similar to the way voice and digis ID, or to create an APRS-IS feed to dump the node info into the internet stream where it could be easily found. The web sites already exist to display the data and in the event of poor/no internet, the RF beacon would still work. Even if you dump the coordinates only onto the APRS-IS, a reverse IGate should spit them out on RF for field visibility.

Thoughts?

Steve AG2AA

Updated instructions for setting up N1MM+ for use on Field Day across a BBHN mesh network.

Charles,  K5CS

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j4q6oobuz6fh3rq/Field%20Day%2C%20N1MM%2B%2C%20and%20mesh.pdf?dl=0

Jim, any of the 5ghz hardware supported by firmware images will work. Problem is that manufacture's inventories are running out of the "XM" hardware that the available firmware supports. Chances are that most hardware you purchase will be the new "XW" hardware. Buying used 5ghz on ebay would increase the chance of firmware compatibility.

The NanoStation M5 XW has availability with beta images available over at www.aredn.org and would easily work for your needs--weighing in that beta images introduce some risk. (There's also ch -2 on 2.4ghz beta.)

The rest of the 5Ghz XW hardware will still take time to have firmware images available. The root cause is a hardware chip issue. The fix-workaround is in the linux kernel at the driver level to magically reset the the physical port (which locks up in hours).

Take a look in the "RACES/MOU News from around the county" section of this newsletter. We've been doing similar with video streams here in Orange County. We had 6 video streams feeding into the Orange County sheriff's mobile command center (think semi-tractor trailer with huge slide outs and a dozen HD screens). we had multiple video streams over both 5ghz and 2.4ghz links in a congested down town area--it works.

http://www.ocraces.org/Newsletters/NetControlJun15.pdf

Joe AE6XE

Hello All,

Saginaw Valley Amateur Radio Association will have their Field Day at Elmer Lange Park in Kochville township this year.

We will have several nodes setup and demonstrating just some of the uses for mesh. We welcome you to stop by and check it out. Feel free to bring your own node if you have one, or your own laptop to connect to the mesh if you would like.

Happy Field Day!

KE8AVJ

If your doing anything with mesh, (presentations, demonstrations, field exercises, etc.) in the Mid-Michigan area, we would love to hear about it.

Even if your outside the Mid-Michigan area and want to get the word out about what your doing, please feel free to post about it here.

Please add your nodes to the map, even if they are mobile/go-bag nodes or are not turned-on very often. This helps encourage people when they see a node relatively close to their location.

If you would like to have someone talk to your club about Broadband-Hamnet, or want advice about giving a presentation, feel free to post that here as well. Please be aware the the less notice given, the less likely someone will be able to make a particular date. Better to ask first and set a date later.

Good luck in your efforts and happy "meshing"

Mike
KE8AVJ