Advice on joining the WUG

[HackaJack]

Hey everyone.

I'm interested in joining two friends and myself to the WUG. We all live in Edgemead and I would like for two of the friends to connect to me. I was planning on purchasing the "2.4GHz 12dBi Vertical Omni Antenna" and the "2.4GHz 802.11N Outdoor Radio System".

My friends are each going to buy the "NanoBridgeM, 2.4GHz, 18dBi (400mm dish)"

Do I need something different in order to receive connections and connect to the WUG?

Thanks

[Diabolix]

Hi Jackhill,

Follow the http://wiki.ctwug.za.net/Getting_started that will guide you in the right direction of what you should do next. Make sure that you all are registered on WIND.

Here is the basic wug kit that wuggers buy to get onto the wug : http://www.scoopdistribution.co.za/product_info.php?cPath=49_78&products_id=783 . And you will also be able to connect the OMNI to the routerboard.

Just make sure that you have a good enough signal to a HS, and that the HS is not overloaded.

Regards

[pmurgs]

Hi Jackhill.

First order of business... go and read thehttp://wiki.ctwug.za.net/Getting_started getting started guide.

Then plot yourself on wind and get your two friends to plot their houses on wind too. Then go onto each of your roofs and take photos all around in 360 degrees and upload them to wind.

Then you can book out one of the ctwug test kits to scan around and see what ctwug sites you have line of sight to.

Then you can contact the owners of those nodes you scanned to see about the possibility of you connecting to one of them, and if able to, what equipment you will need.

Now regarding your proposed equipment plan... omni antenna's, especially 2.4Ghz ones are nasty. You end up swamping the houses in your area causing them problems with their own wifi networks and cordless telephones and so on at home. I suggest you either buy four nanobridges to connect you and your two friends, two are your house and one at each of their houses. Or if both of your friends live in the same direction from your house, you could put up a ubiquiti sector and rocket kit which would allow more people to possibly connect to you in the future (your friends still use nanobridges to connect to you in this case).

Also you really want to go with 5Ghz and not 2.4Ghz. 2.4Ghz spectrum is small and cluttered. You will have a lot more hastles and interfere with a lot of other peoples equipment at 2.4.

The vast majority of nodes on the wug are 5Ghz and use mikrotik equipment. You will very likely have to get this equipment to make your connection to the wug. Using Ubiquiti equipment to connect to Mikrotik equipment is just going to make things difficult and some node owners will not let you connect with Ubiquiti to their Mikrotik equipment.

So go plot the three nodes on wind, take your photos, book out the test kit, do your scans, then contact the people who you've scanned to see about the possibility of connecting to someone. Don't buy equipment expecting to connect to the wug without doing the above else you may get stuck with equipment you cant use to get on the wug.

[HackaJack]

Thanks for the replies.

I've already registered with wind and have plotted all 3 of the addresses. My main plan was to connect my 2 friends to me to share my internet account and game. I eventually want to get more friends on so figured the WUG would be the best option for that. I'm obviously very new to all of this so spoke to a support person at scoop. He recommended a 5ghz setup, comprising of the following things

Outdoor Radio System (R625)
http://www.scoopdistribution.co.za/product_info.php?products_id=799

POE-15 (R95)
http://www.scoopdistribution.co.za/product_info.php?products_id=822

Antenna (R230)
http://www.scoopdistribution.co.za/product_info.php?products_id=509

Client Stations (R575)
http://www.scoopdistribution.co.za/product_info.php?products_id=1018

This weekend I got on my friends roof to try and find my house. We're about 920 metres apart as the crow flies but there are a bunch of trees in our LOS. I explained this to the support guy at scoop today and he recommended 2.4 equipment.

I'll have another read of the getting started thread and figure out where to go from here.

My main requirement is connecting my friends to me at the fastest possible speed for content sharing, VOIP and gaming. Would connecting through the WUG slow us down a lot?

Thanks so much

[Sselmrah]

"My main requirement is connecting my friends to me at the fastest possible speed for content sharing, VOIP and gaming. Would connecting through the WUG slow us down a lot?"

This all depends on how many hops there are between you, and since you and your buddies will probably be connecting to the same HS it should be pretty fast.

[pmurgs]

Well, you could always use a 2.4 nanobridge to 2.4 nanobridge for you to your one friend with the trees in the way. Hopefully you will get a decent connection. And use a pair of 5Ghz nanobridges for your friend who doesn't have trees in the way. This will give you the best speed between you and your friends and be a good place to start with wireless networking as Ubqitui gear is easier to setup than the Mikrotik gear most of the wug uses. After that you can get organised with a wug connection from your house and your friends can share that with you.

Otherwise all three of you perhaps could get your own wug connections. The speed wont be as good between each of you then and you won't be able to easily share internet over the wug, perhaps not at all. But this would give you each better speed overall to the wug.

From your requirements, I'd go out and get a pair of 2.4 nanobridges and see if you can connect to your friend with the trees in the way with them. If it works fine, then connect up your other friend with another pair, 5Ghz preferable if you have clear line of sight. If your link to your friend with the trees doesn't work fine, use the nanobridges to at least connect to your one friend who you have line of sight to with no trees. After that look at whats required for a wug connection.

[HackaJack]

Well, you could always use a 2.4 nanobridge to 2.4 nanobridge for you to your one friend with the trees in the way. Hopefully you will get a decent connection. And use a pair of 5Ghz nanobridges for your friend who doesn't have trees in the way. This will give you the best speed between you and your friends and be a good place to start with wireless networking as Ubqitui gear is easier to setup than the Mikrotik gear most of the wug uses. After that you can get organised with a wug connection from your house and your friends can share that with you.

Otherwise all three of you perhaps could get your own wug connections. The speed wont be as good between each of you then and you won't be able to easily share internet over the wug, perhaps not at all. But this would give you each better speed overall to the wug.

From your requirements, I'd go out and get a pair of 2.4 nanobridges and see if you can connect to your friend with the trees in the way with them. If it works fine, then connect up your other friend with another pair, 5Ghz preferable if you have clear line of sight. If your link to your friend with the trees doesn't work fine, use the nanobridges to at least connect to your one friend who you have line of sight to with no trees. After that look at whats required for a wug connection.

Thanks so much. That definitely sounds like the best plan. There is only one distant tree in the way so I might get 5ghz nano bridges and a 120 degree antenna and radio to start.

I'll be in contact again when we're ready to join

[HackaJack]

Hey everyone. I connected my friend to my house this weekend, just need to adjust the antenna poles a bit because they move in the wind but we still get a connection.

Regulatory question: What is the maximum power I should set his and my equipment to to prevent interfering with other sites in the area? We are on the lower 5ghz band and there doesn't seem to be any interference because the floor noise is -96db.

Is there a calculator somewhere that I can use based on antenna gain, radio and distance?

This is a point to point to link

Thanks so much

[pmurgs]

What equipment did you end up using jackhill?

If you are using Ubquiti equipment... try to lower the power on both sides while keeping the signal strength below -65. Anywhere in the low 60's should be very good. You should have a fast stable link then while using the least amount of power. If you are using Ubiquiti equipment, make sure you are using WPA2-AES encryption over WEP as that will provide higher speeds and better security.

[HackaJack]

What equipment did you end up using jackhill?

If you are using Ubquiti equipment... try to lower the power on both sides while keeping the signal strength below -65. Anywhere in the low 60's should be very good. You should have a fast stable link then while using the least amount of power. If you are using Ubiquiti equipment, make sure you are using WPA2-AES encryption over WEP as that will provide higher speeds and better security.

Hi there pmurgs.

Yes, got the Ubiquiti equipment. Found a nano bridge 300mm dish on Gumtree for R500 and bought the 16dbi 120 degree antenna and rocket radio. We have some trees in the way so setting the gain to regulatory limits 12 on the Nano and 17 on the Rocket, we get about a 30mbps connection. As a quick test I boosted the rocket to 27 (max) and the nano to 23 (max), we then got 90+ mbps.

I obviously don't want to break regulatory conditions but people on the ubiquiti forum say the regulatory option is flawed because point to point and type of antenna don't calculate the setting correctly. People say we should manually calculate the gain. Would anyone know how we do that?

I found this post on mybroadband

But as for the EIRP calculation, its pretty simple:
"TX power + antenna gain - loss in cables and connectors = EIRP

eg:
100mW radio, is 20dBm
20dBi antenna
3m of LMR-200 with 2 connectors = approx 5dBi loss

20dBm + 20dBi - 5dBi = 35dBm
35dBm is a little over 3Watts, which is way over the legal limit of 100mW in 2.4Ghz"

Thanks

[pmurgs]

Im not clued up on working those types of things out, but I'm sure there are others here who can.

What I would recommend though is to turn up the power on the nanobridge which has to see through the trees rather than turning up the power on the rocket sector if possible. the rocket broadcasts all around, so best to try keeps its power lower. The nanobridge with its very narrow signal beam will cause less problems for other people if it has a higher power setting.

[HackaJack]

Im not clued up on working those types of things out, but I'm sure there are others here who can.

What I would recommend though is to turn up the power on the nanobridge which has to see through the trees rather than turning up the power on the rocket sector if possible. the rocket broadcasts all around, so best to try keeps its power lower. The nanobridge with its very narrow signal beam will cause less problems for other people if it has a higher power setting.

That makes sense.

Thanks so much

p.s - Why don't wuggers like connecting Ubiquiti equipment to Microtik? I installed my friends nano bridge first and did a scan. We found three access points that were unencrypted, are those wug connections or does everyone on the wug encrypt?

[HackaJack]

duplicate post caused by refresh

[pmurgs]

The problem with Ubquiti equipment on the wug is that Ubiquiti does not support OSPF. OSPF is the routing network protocol used on the wug to decide how to send data from one node to another. OSPF also handles changing the routes when a link goes down.

Since Ubquiti does not have OSPF support, if a Ubiquiti link goes down, the wug network does not know the reroute the traffic via another set of links, so the data gets lost and the network connection broken.

Using Ubiquiti is fine if you do not have connections to the wug on both sides of the Ubiquiti link. With only a single wug link, if the Ubiquiti link goes down, there is no other route to reroute the traffic through anyway so it does not matter about not having OSPF support. In your case here, you and your friends should be fine if you only have one ctwug link. If one of your Ubiquiti links goes down, it makes no difference as there is no secondary route to use to the node that is now disconnected.

Thats the main reason why most people don't use Ubiquiti.

Secondary reason is Ubiquiti and Mikrotik have their own proprietary protocols over their links to speed up the link. If a Ubiquiti client connects to the Mikrotik sector, the sector has to disable the Mikrotik proprietary protocol on the sector and this slows the sector speed down for all users on the sector. Plus connecting Ubiquiti to Mikrotik is harder to troubleshoot and make work than just using Mikrotik to Mikrotik.

[HackaJack]

Thanks for explaining. I'll get the WUG equipment at a later stage then and connect all of us.

Thanks for all your help

[HackaJack]

Hey everyone.

I have my network up. Still a lot of tweaking to do but we are up and sharing internet and content no problem. I've configured a DC Hub and client and my friend gets between 1.5 and 2.2 MBps.

I'm going to move my friends antenna this weekend to try and improve the signal. We currently move between 55 and 108mbps depending on the wind factor.

I'm also in talks with someone about buying their WUG kit so should be joining soon

[cltgra005]

The problem with Ubquiti equipment on the wug is that Ubiquiti does not support OSPF. OSPF is the routing network protocol used on the wug to decide how to send data from one node to another. OSPF also handles changing the routes when a link goes down.

Since Ubquiti does not have OSPF support, if a Ubiquiti link goes down, the wug network does not know the reroute the traffic via another set of links, so the data gets lost and the network connection broken.

Using Ubiquiti is fine if you do not have connections to the wug on both sides of the Ubiquiti link. With only a single wug link, if the Ubiquiti link goes down, there is no other route to reroute the traffic through anyway so it does not matter about not having OSPF support. In your case here, you and your friends should be fine if you only have one ctwug link. If one of your Ubiquiti links goes down, it makes no difference as there is no secondary route to use to the node that is now disconnected.

Thats the main reason why most people don't use Ubiquiti.

Secondary reason is Ubiquiti and Mikrotik have their own proprietary protocols over their links to speed up the link. If a Ubiquiti client connects to the Mikrotik sector, the sector has to disable the Mikrotik proprietary protocol on the sector and this slows the sector speed down for all users on the sector. Plus connecting Ubiquiti to Mikrotik is harder to troubleshoot and make work than just using Mikrotik to Mikrotik.

So has anyone successfully connected to a Mikrotik based high site using Ubiquiti equipment? Please elaborate on that bit about Mikrotik versus Ubiquiti proprietary protocols. Are you talking about their mimo features? What sort of performance degradation will a high site experience if a wugger using a Ubiquiti Nanostation connects to it?

[Aragon]

The problem with Ubquiti equipment on the wug is that Ubiquiti does not support OSPF. OSPF is the routing network protocol used on the wug to decide how to send data from one node to another. OSPF also handles changing the routes when a link goes down.
Since your post we've been running OSPF on UBNT for a few weeks, and things are running smoothly. Any other wuggers keen to test this?

http://wiki.ctwug.za.net/Adding_OSPF_support_to_Ubiquiti_devices


Please elaborate on that bit about Mikrotik versus Ubiquiti proprietary protocols. Are you talking about their mimo features? What sort of performance degradation will a high site experience if a wugger using a Ubiquiti Nanostation connects to it?
The main difference is the TDMA MACs. Ubiquiti uses a TDMA protocol called Airmax, while Mikrotik use Nstreme, and very recently Nv2. They are incompatible with each other - a Ubiquiti device will be unable to connect to a high site running Nv2.

The performance degradation comes in when a high site is forced to use a CSMA/CA MAC to accommodate 802.11 standard radios. Do some reading up on TDMA vs. CSMA/CA, but here's a brief explanation:

http://gregsowell.com/?p=2208

As far as MIMO goes, I think both support at least 2x2 now. Ubiquiti devices make it very easy to setup with their firmware and antenna designs, but MT look like they're moving in a similar direction with their SXT 5HnD (http://www.routerboard.com/index.php?showProduct=108).