Mesh Nodes Working!!!

[W5BFF]

I stumbled on the BBHN project on accident while visiting my father-in-law in North Dallas. There was a "mesh net" discussion on the Denton, TX club repeater that I jumped in on, and that planted the seed for me.

I'm in far northeast Texas, and there's nothing like this anywhere for several miles... the closest being probably around a hundred miles or so... nothing in Texarkana or Shreveport (which kinda surprises me...)

Anyhow, I ordered 2 of the Ubiquiti Bullet M2 radios and got them talking to each other... even gating one to the internet, which, was an interesting trick in and of itself. It required the purchase of a managed switch.

The BBHN website is HORRIBLE as far as "nuts and bolts" set up of this system... and it's a bit to learn if you're not using the antiquated Linksys WRT routers... but I got it going here, none-the-less.

 

[GrumpyGuard]

Inquiring mind want to know more. How did you set up the equipment? What distance is the mesh network covering? Do you plan on expanding the network? What problems did you run into and how did you overcome them?

These are just a few questions I have off the top of my head.

 

[K5MPH]

This stuff sounds very interesting I read some stuff about a year ago but did not pay much atention to it could u
you post any links on this subject........

 

[W5BFF]

Inquiring mind want to know more. How did you set up the equipment? What distance is the mesh network covering? Do you plan on expanding the network? What problems did you run into and how did you overcome them?

These are just a few questions I have off the top of my head.

Well, I *JUST* got them working... I got the nodes to communicate a few days ago, but was having a LOT of grief figuring out how to bridge the WAN and LAN interfaces.

The Ubiquiti Bullet M2 only has one ethernet port, so a managed switch is required to route the "tagged" packets from the WAN.

As of now, the distance has only been about 20 feet... I'm working with my future "remote" node here in the living room, while my "home" node is in my office. The home node is the one gated to the internet. I connected a laptop to the "remote" node via wire, then wirelessly accessed the internet through the home node.

For configuring the managed switch (Netgear GS105E), I used the directions found here:

A VLAN Setup for BBHN using a Netgear GS108E | AE5CA

I wasn't linking the two radios via wire to point two different directions, I was just using them p2p wireless as if they were deployed.

I have a 50' tower my home node will be sitting on when the weather gets a little nicer and I can get that puppy up! The remote node will be put on our local repeater tower, and I'll probably buy another radio to put on another repeater tower, which should provide some WIDE area coverage.

 

[GrumpyGuard]

Sound great. Thanks for answering my questions. Please update this thread as the work progresses.

 

[n9mxq]

Broadband-Hamnet I have 7 WRT based nodes. and one Ubiquity Nanostation M2. And absolutely noone to mesh with.. Yet... hehe

 

[KO4RJX]

Their is no activity where I live either but I like the technology. One thing I did was create a VoIP System using FreePBX. Free PBX runs off one node and the other is gated to the internet so I can make outgoing calls.

 

[W5BFF]

"Yet" is the key word, folks. APRS didn't just start off being the world-wide network that it is, today. Heck, the internet didn't even start off being what it was! I had my own website before WAL-MART DID!!!!

This is something that will have to be built. You, people, are the ones that are STARTING THIS!!!

 

[K5MPH]

To me this is what ham radio is all about playing around and bulding stuff like this.......

 

[W5BFF]

Okay, further setup information:

Node 1:
w5bff.local.mesh is the node name. I've set it up as NAT with my Win2k3 Server as the DMZ.

I installed MediaWiki on the server, but had to name the server w5bff.local.mesh, as well, because that's how to reach that node. Interestingly, enough, the node passes ALL traffic right through to the server, and the wiki loads up just fine on the local network, as well as from the mesh.

The REAL cool thing was I punched in \\w5bff.local.mesh from a computer going through a remote node (about 20 feet away), and guess what? I was able to map network drives over the mesh!!!

The only (non) drawback is to access the node through port 8080 can only happen from the LAN interface, since assigning the server as the DMZ gets 8080 requests from the mesh.

I, also, configured this node as a gateway... which is working flawlessly (and QUICKLY!)

The only real testing I haven't done yet is distance.

Node 2 is just set up here in my bedroom for now... my laptop connected to nothing but the node can access everything on Node 1 to include the internet.

 

[K3EP]

Jerry ...I was browsing Mesh posts and ran across yours. How is your set up working? A few of us are beginning the process of setting up a Mesh in Stafford, VA. So I'm doing a lot of reading!!

73 ...

 

[talkpair]

Is amateur mesh networking different from ordinary mesh networking?

From what I can tell, they are using ordinary 802.11 spectrum, which is available to anyone.