Question, once the M5 has been re imaged  with the MESH firmware is it possible to isolate its transmissions to only a selected FCC HAM Radio frequency?

Thank you,

Marcus

In true NOOB fashion I'm going to start a new thread with my first post on this forum. Let the hazing begin. :)

I'm a member of an active Ham community in Southwest Minnesota. Recently we have been looking implementing a mesh network in conjunction with our emergency preparedness team, MNSWEPT. MnSWEPT is a pretty unique coalition of 23 hospitals, 50 nursing homes, 43 clinincs, and 103 EMS groups over a gigantic 16 county area. They currently have VHF radios installed in many of these healthcare facilities that have licensed operators designated to run them. The ultimate goal is to add a node to these existing stations.

First though we'd like to start with a simple network of 3-6 Nodes to cover one of the more difficult points of terrain for proof of concept. The geographic footprint of the organization is huge, covering about 10,000 square miles. However, the upside is that this is relatively flat farmland with a very low noise floor. The hospitals are spaced about 10-20+ miles apart but there will likely be opportunities for nodes in between. 

I have very limited experience with BBHN. I currently have 3 Linksys nodes that I have used to connect computers with logging software on Field Day. That being said, I'm excited to learn more about this and have quite a few questions for those of you who have been at this for a while.

1. Is a network of this size feasible?

2. Will administering such a network be an absolute nightmare? (Updates and such)

3. Would it be better to run on 2.4 or 5.8 Ghz?

4. We are currently looking at the AirGrid as our go-to antenna - Is there a better solution? Is there any reason that we couldn't install more than one of these antennas on the same tower (IE a North/South orientation) and have them connect to each other as well as the nodes in the direction they're pointing?

5. From everything I've been reading we would need to broadcast an SSID? Is there no way to transmit on, say Channel 0? I don't see that option on my Linksys nodes, I was just curious. That's a large area to broadcast over that likely has zero other SSID's present in many places.

6. Any advice/wisdom from those of you who have been there and know things I haven't even thought of yet? Or just let me know what you actually think of such a project and if we're crazy for starting such a task.

ok, you have sold me on the fact that DNS and all needs to be functional.

Is there a best-practice for guys that have an existing SOHO router connected to their ISP and want to plug the mesh node into a spare port?

In my case, I added a static route for 10.0.0.0/8 that pointed to the mesh node wired address.  I also added some DNS entries to my local server.  All "seems" to be ok for me. My linux machine has a custom mesh webpage (based on your inbound IP address being 10.0.0./8) as well as a few other services (and they work 100% via the mesh!)

Not everyone has access to a local linux machine but everyone has a home router.  I am trying to predict the potential support questions from our club members.

Always happy to listen to how other groups have managed to implement their kit.

Understand on being new and being willing to help, that is how I got involved myself and had to figure out some of these items and we are looking for people being willing to help.

A 'properly working' BBHN network has DNS working, if DNS resolution isn't working the network isn't considered functional from our end. DNS is a key component for the 'ease of access' all the Advertised URL's will always be name based not IP based, so even if you can get to the OLSR Status Page your still not going to be able to click any of the links there without DNS resolution.  Ease of use is a core feature of the builds and names are needed for that

All the links except the olsr link are relative links, they don't include a server path the browser just adds it on itself. I fi connect at http://localnode:8080 the browser uses locanode, if I connect at http://mynode:8080 it uses the my nodes full name, and if connect by IP  it would use IP.

If the button was to be made to follow it would want to be looked at HTTP_HOST ENV variable to dynamically set the hostname similar to how relative URL's are done in the browser..  I don't know off hand if the Linksys microperl supports this (newer microperl do not and have to run full Perl like we do in Ubiquiti build)

You should be able to get to the status page of any node across the mesh by http://nodename:8080 . If you use the eth0 ip as described in your post a  user will be able to get to your status page, but when they click your OLSR status they will get a can not connect error, or worse, if ip's collide they will see their own OLSR status instead of yours.

You should also be able to access any service by its nodename:port combination.  IP addresses are not considered the 'ideal' way to access the mesh.  The local node you are plugged into is always at localnode byname.  If  a user say "hey checkout this its at http://mynodename/   you would have the same problem without getting dns working.

As noted in the previous threads, please refer to to BBHN->ticket:55 for details and status on the issue. The ticket system handles more of the updates as it tracks the progress of issues.

Also as noted in other threads, the issue is with the WRT hardware, there are work around in the current release such as using an external switch to buffer between the hardware in the WRT54 and the devices you wish to use.

Yes the bug came out in 1.1.0, because we started doing more with the hardware,  tasks the hardware should be able to handle, the fact that it has issue wasn't seen as part of 1.0.0 and below is because we were not attempting to utilize that part of the hardware, the bug however still existed in the hardware and just wasn't seen.

Hi there 

I'm looking at getting some Ubiquiti gear to flash.

I see in the software download page for Ubiquiti that picostation m2 has a firmware file.

But in the support hardware page the picostation m2 is not listed.

I did a quick search round the forums and found that it was planned to release firmware for the picostation m2 in the next release and at the time 1.1.1 was running. And now 1.1.2 is out.

Is my questions are

Will the firmware run on a picostation m2 hp

And if so is it fully tested?

Is there a differents between the firmware for the for the picostation m2 and the picostation m2 hp?

Thanks

I am not seeing an attachment on my side either.

Note:

As written will not work across the mesh in NAT mode (eth0 ip would be non mesh accessible) it also does not work on Linksys (eth0.0 vs eth0)

I have fixed the issue.
Log into OpenWRT.
Edit/vi /www/cgi-bin/status

near line 52
original: (1 line)
print "<button type=button onClick='window.location=\"http://$node:1978/\"' title='See the OLSR routing details'";


change to: (now 2 lines)
($ip, $mask, $bcast, $net, $cidr) = get_ip4_network("eth0");                                                      
print "<button type=button onClick='window.location=\"http://$ip:1978/\"' title='See the OLSR routing details'";

Now when you display the status screen, clicking on the [OLSR Status] button displays the webpage by calling the IP address instead of the name.  DNS resolution not required

I tried to enter the details for the bug, but the Website logged me out before I could save it.

Since I could not mouse the text into this window, I am attaching a description as an attachment instead.

Since I don't see any indication of it after uploading it (as a text file), please contact me directly if you do not receive it.

Thank-you.

de Vern (W6NCT)

PS:

The last post and this onw was through 3 meshed routers which included going through Ubiquiti M5H router to WRT54,  to WRT54 with WAN gateway.

73

Guys,

Thanks for the quick relpys!   I found the problem to be Ubiquiti firmware which I had helper upload few weeks ago, but wasnt at the latest updated version for WRT54's.    

I just reflashed the Ubiquiti router and all 6 routers are seen now in the mesh. 

Now to run over to EOC fix and update that Ubiquiti router firmware too, which was my first indication something was a miss when war driving arount town here with WRT54.

Thank you all for replying and help here ! 

73,

Randy,WA0D  

Please confirm:

• None are Ethernet-connected to each other, unless as Clint has pointed out... they're on different bands (the only network they share is the RF Mesh on 2.4 GHz)
• You haven't modified the OLSR Secure key
• The Linksys nodes haven't decided to mesh on a channel other than 1

Andre, K6AH

WA0D  are both (all) nodes running the 1.1.2 firmware?  You can see that from the status screen.  Then both  SSID's must match.  The other thing to look at is the channel number.  All should be on 1.  The WRT's would jump to an off channel node but UBNT will not. 

I am assuming the the UBNT is an M2.  An M5 would need to be connected with an Eithernet cable between the LAN Ports.

I have connected a WRT54G, and a WRT54GL to my ubiquiti nodes with no problem.  I believe I have connected a WRT54GS as well, but the GS may have been prior to 1.1.2 but after 1.0.1.  I have used them all at one time or another.

Clint, AE5CA