March 2015 - PSDR - mailman.hamwan.org

Questions from poking around Cacti view of network?
by Kenny Richards 16 Sep '15

16 Sep '15

I was going through the graphs/data available via Cacti server and had few questions. 1) What are the Rainier and Tacoma PTP links for on Baldi? Both are showing no traffic recently, are they for future growth? 2) There are three PTP links at Paine I was curious about. I'm guessing the 'Monroe' link is really Bart's client node. But is the Shoreline and 'Bruce' PTP links purpose? The Shoreline link is showing lots of traffic, is that the uplink from the Westin? 3) There seems to be a big hole in the data in the last 24 hours, any idea what happen? Seems to impact all the data sources, so probably something on the server side? Thanks Kenny

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VOTE: Nigel Vander Houwen running for Director
by Nigel Vander Houwen 05 Apr '15

05 Apr '15

Hello, I am announcing my intention to run again for a Director position on the HamWAN Board. The 7 day voting period for my election will begin immediately. I am currently a Director for HamWAN, as well as an administrator for the network infrastructure. I have been a primary force in maintaining the network infrastructure, have completed our contract with the Digital Fortress datacenter facility and have completed the initial installation of a new edge router and server at the facility, in addition to having helped install equipment at our Capitol Hill, Baldi, Paine, and Mirrormont sites. I will continue to push for performance and coverage improvements in the network, and I’d like to see further adoption at EOC facilities as a driver for network use. Each supporting member gets to cast one Yay or Nay vote in my election, or can choose to abstain from voting. As a supporting member myself, I will vote YAY. Please reply on the list with your votes. Thank you, Nigel Vander Houwen

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Would anyone like to lend a hand this Sunday @ Haystack?
by Bart Kus 28 Mar '15

28 Mar '15

Going up to Haystack (by Sultan, WA) this Sunday. Could use 1 volunteer to help out. There's a steep hill climb before reaching the site, and multiple up/down trips may be required. The agenda for this trip is: 1) Fix the Haystack <-> Paine link (wind has blown the dish 15 deg off the correct bearing) 2) Replace the Sector 3 modem PCB 3) Use a new remote beacon to perform correct vertical alignment on Sector 3. 4) Chop down some trees to clear up LoS to antennas and solar panels as necessary Please let me know if you're interested in helping out. --Bart

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Re: [HamWAN PSDR] VOTE: 900MHz service experiment
by gary.k7ek＠yahoo.com 10 Mar '15

10 Mar '15

I'd be interested in experimenting with 900 mhz gear at my Spanaway residence, and possibly at my Graham Hill repeater site. I believe 900 mhz would provide better overall results than 5 Ghz, which proved to be marginal to barely usable during our recent site survey. Best regards, Gary, K7EK Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Smartphone ----- Reply message ----- From: "Bart Kus" <me(a)bartk.us> To: "Puget Sound Data Ring" <psdr(a)hamwan.org> Subject: [HamWAN PSDR] VOTE: 900MHz service experiment Date: Fri, Mar 6, 2015 10:38 Hello, 5.9GHz is awesome when it works. The speeds are great, and it carries as far as the eye can see with very low ambient noise floor. It does however have problems when it needs to penetrate trees and buildings. To alleviate this, I'd like HamWAN to offer a slower but deeper penetrating 900MHz service. 900MHz is the lowest frequency ham band without bandwidth or modulation rate restrictions. Before we deploy a full cell site, I'd like to get some real-world experience with 900MHz penetration, propagation and ambient noise conditions. Here's the cheapest appropriate hardware we can use for this: 1x Vpol omni antenna @ $79.50/ea = $79.50 (http://www.balticnetworks.com/laird-antenna-omni-8dbi-900mhz-n-female-integ…) 2x 9HPn modem @ $108.00/ea = $216.00 (http://www.balticnetworks.com/mikrotik-metal-9hpn.html) 1x Shipping @ $UNKNOWN (quote not showing?! Need to call them.) = $40.00 ??? Total: $335.50 I already have a 900MHz high gain Yagi-Uda in my inventory and can use that to do various field tests. These can be directly compared against 5.9GHz performance since the gear will be deployed to one of our existing 5.9GHz cell sites. The results of such comparisons will give us a good idea of how well 900MHz might do for HamWAN. Disclaimer: These may not be the right modems or antennas for us long-term. A real deployment might use Ubiquiti Rocket M900 with their sector antennas. These Ubiquiti items are far more expensive though, and their software doesn't integrate as easily into our network, so for the purposes of the test I believe the set of hardware I proposed will do well at deploying fast and keeping costs down. NOTE: If both the votes are approved, I will combine shipping from Baltic to save money. --Bart _______________________________________________ PSDR mailing list PSDR(a)hamwan.org http://mail.hamwan.net/mailman/listinfo/psdr

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Re: [HamWAN PSDR] PSDR Digest, Vol 28, Issue 6
by Bryan Fields 09 Mar '15

09 Mar '15

On 3/9/15 12:55 PM, Marc Lacy wrote: > Bryan, > > Are these mods posted somewhere? > > Thanks > 73 marc kd7ryy Not that I know of, but I have some notes on them from 15 years ago when I was working with them. I'd be happy to share. It's basically flashing the spectrum firmware on them (it's universal for AU/SU), changing the solder jumpers and then rebooting, then flashing the AU firmware on them. Flashing it is nothing special, tftp the files to them. I also have the firmware if anyone wants it. They are not fast by today's standards (1.6mbit throughput) but will do pbit QoS, Vlans, single freq, and have a nice management interface. I have a decoder key card to get into the test menu too/ password reset. The latest firmware is up here, 4.5.16 is the one you want for ham stuff. http://www.wirelessconnections.net/index.php/BreezeACCESS-900/View-category… A couple common problems were Boori init errors which are unrecoverable due to the ASIC being dead, and the Ethernet chip. The chip is easy to repair, just swap it and you're good to go. -- Bryan Fields 727-409-1194 - Voice 727-214-2508 - Fax http://bryanfields.net

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Re: [HamWAN PSDR] PSDR Digest, Vol 28, Issue 6
by Marc Lacy 09 Mar '15

09 Mar '15

Bryan, Are these mods posted somewhere? Thanks 73 marc kd7ryy -----Original Message----- From: PSDR [mailto:psdr-bounces@hamwan.org] On Behalf Of psdr-request(a)hamwan.org Sent: Friday, March 06, 2015 12:46 PM To: psdr(a)hamwan.org Subject: PSDR Digest, Vol 28, Issue 6 Send PSDR mailing list submissions to psdr(a)hamwan.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://mail.hamwan.net/mailman/listinfo/psdr or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to psdr-request(a)hamwan.org You can reach the person managing the list at psdr-owner(a)hamwan.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of PSDR digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: VOTE: 900MHz service experiment (Bryan Fields) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 06 Mar 2015 15:45:32 -0500 From: Bryan Fields <Bryan(a)bryanfields.net> To: Bart Kus <me(a)bartk.us>, Puget Sound Data Ring <psdr(a)hamwan.org> Subject: Re: [HamWAN PSDR] VOTE: 900MHz service experiment Message-ID: <54FA11EC.8080905(a)bryanfields.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" On 3/6/15 2:05 PM, Bryan Fields wrote: > Bart, they are only viable as second hand items. It was the first gen > wisp gear circa 2002, And they can't give the away on eBay. 2mhz > channel and gfsk modulation, about 1.6 mbit/s. Gfsk can use a class c amp too.... They are all over, ebay has them for 15 dollars. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Alvarion-SU-I-D-1D-900-890016-BreezeAccess-900MHz-W… These can be converted to AU's (AP's) with a simple jumper mod, and even set to 1mhz bandwidth too if need be. They put out 27 dBm which is quite good for 900 mhz. With a small outdoor box you have a nice mast mount AP. I've attached a system manual on them if you're interested. > I can see if I have a contact for OAL when i get home. I can't stress > enough how H pol will make a difference for you, or at least did for me. http://www.hamtv.com/oal.html http://www.hamtv.com/wheel.html I was paying $500 for the commercial version of this, it was about 10dbi at 900mhz. They came in a 4' long 12" PVC pipe radome that accepted a 1.5" pipe at the end. Couple this with a M2 17dbi client antenna and you get some nice range. -- Bryan Fields 727-409-1194 - Voice 727-214-2508 - Fax http://bryanfields.net

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Tukwila deployment party
by Bart Kus 08 Mar '15

08 Mar '15

OK, so it's not really a "party" in the jubilant sense. :) All the hardware is @ Tukwila and it just needs to be set up. I'm gonna try to get Friday off to do this. I need to do a passport thing in the morning, but should be able to start on Tukwila around 1:30PM. I'm hoping we can do everything within a 4 hour window. It's just 2 dishes and their mounts that need to be deployed on a flat, easily accessible roof. If you can carve out some time to help get this deployed, please let the list know. I'll get back with your personally to confirm arrangements. Thanks, --Bart

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Re: [HamWAN PSDR] Sea-Pac seminar question
by Bart Kus 08 Mar '15

08 Mar '15

Let me forward this to our mailing list for consideration. I'm taking a break from presentations. Oddly enough my wife is pushing me to go to SeaPac this year since she enjoys hanging out at the ocean. :) In terms of suggestions, has this ham tried any of the existing avenues to learn about the technical aspects of HamWAN? These include reading our published documentation, asking questions on the mailing list, or engaging in our real-time chat with the people who develop HamWAN. --Bart On 3/8/2015 9:51 AM, Delvin R Bunton wrote: > > I have a request from another ham who would like to learn about some > of the engineering aspects to create a working HamWan network. Would > you have any suggestions for someone (which could include you) to > speak at Sea-Pac on Sunday about the technical side of HamWan or > similar kind of network? Any suggestions most appreciated. > > Delvin R. Bunton > > N7QMT – > > Sea-Pac 2015 Seminar Chair >

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VOTE: Ryan Turner running for Director on HamWAN
by Ryan Elliott Turner 06 Mar '15

06 Mar '15

Hello HamWAN PSDR group, I'm the founder/president of HamWAN Memphis Metro, and an active member of the HamWAN standards group at large. While I don't share the same network and operations technical experience as some of the others, I do have some skills with marketing, team-building, and strategy. I would like the opportunity to serve on the HamWAN board to represent the other regions that have deployed HamWAN. I'd like the chance to advocate for and work on: - Developing the working-group standards for HamWAN - Promoting the project to the international community - Creating partnerships with sponsoring agencies, specifically in the form of grants - Forming new HamWAN networks in regions with interested sponsoring hams and supporting populations/topographies I am in Memphis, TN, so I will not be able to contribute to any of the physical plant operations in Seattle. I also have little interest in acting as a network operator for the PSDR group, as I already have my hands full with MemHamWAN and frequently ask for help from PSDR. I will provide some different skills to the group, and I would appreciate your vote in favor of me for director of HamWAN. I vote yay in favor of myself :) HamWAN PSDR members, please reply with your votes! Thanks, -- Ryan Turner

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Re: [HamWAN PSDR] VOTE: 900MHz service experiment
by Bryan Fields 06 Mar '15

06 Mar '15

On 3/6/15 2:05 PM, Bryan Fields wrote: > Bart, they are only viable as second hand items. It was the first gen wisp > gear circa 2002, And they can't give the away on eBay. 2mhz channel and gfsk > modulation, about 1.6 mbit/s. Gfsk can use a class c amp too.... They are all over, ebay has them for 15 dollars. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Alvarion-SU-I-D-1D-900-890016-BreezeAccess-900MHz-W… These can be converted to AU's (AP's) with a simple jumper mod, and even set to 1mhz bandwidth too if need be. They put out 27 dBm which is quite good for 900 mhz. With a small outdoor box you have a nice mast mount AP. I've attached a system manual on them if you're interested. > I can see if I have a contact for OAL when i get home. I can't stress enough > how H pol will make a difference for you, or at least did for me. http://www.hamtv.com/oal.html http://www.hamtv.com/wheel.html I was paying $500 for the commercial version of this, it was about 10dbi at 900mhz. They came in a 4' long 12" PVC pipe radome that accepted a 1.5" pipe at the end. Couple this with a M2 17dbi client antenna and you get some nice range. -- Bryan Fields 727-409-1194 - Voice 727-214-2508 - Fax http://bryanfields.net

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