View of poles seen from green tank 6.6Km away,, the tank is away on another farm The Knob close up where we placed to "wifi repeater" on the old water tank
Additions to Branch33 KIWISDR
The very sucessfull MK2 kiwisdr that we installed on Mamaku site had
to finish . We were running it temporarily into the internet via a 4g modem .It
just got too expensive to proceed at NZ$60 monthly so the "pin was
Pulled " After me talking to my friend Neil at "On Site
Support" computer business in Rotorua , who owns the farm up on the top of the Maketu plateau,
an lived down in mamaku village 6.5 Kms away from the SDR site
,offered the use of his "unlimited" fibre connection and fixed I.P address
. this offer was graciously accepted by the club, so we looked at
the possibility of connection over the non line of sight path. .
The connection is from a high point on the farm we call "the green tank" where you
can look "downwards' to the source of high speed internet connection
buried among trees 6-7 Kms in the distance and god only knows what other RF
restrictions are in the way
The first initial tries direct were done with some an old DSE 52
Mb/s AP's at 2.4 GHz set to 10 MB as a bridge, more than fast enough to
run the sdr link, these we configure with afterburners of 1 W output and
fed into 25dB Hills parabolic grid
dishes .In a nutshell the obstructed path showed connect ability that
enabled us to operate the sdr but the connection was really "on the edge" and
possibly had no fade margin, should weather conditions change, We
really needed a solid high speed reliable connection as the" farm"
also wants to connect to the high speed internet so they can shelve their
expensive Rural broadband connection ..
we tried a modern commercial 5.8 GHz bridge setup between the same
two points but nothing ! . (shows you what 2.4 GHz can do if
pushed hard !) so it was apparent , due to the non line of sight path we
were to have to find away around the obstruction .Jonno the Farmer
( Neils" son )
had shown me via his long range remote camera mounted at the green tank, a
potential site, seen by power poles showing in the distance ..It was
ascertained that the power pole was on a high hillock only 0.5 Km from the
internet source ! the Power pole was on a farm near town so permission
for the radio club to establish a solar powered "wifi" repeater site on
the hillock.
We now had direct connection on 2.4 GHz with a pair of
"Cambium force 200" bridge units . we then established the 0.5 Km link
with a pair of 5.8 GHz Ruijie Reyee RG AirMetro460F in Wireless Bridge mode .
We Found
that the 2.4 GZ link across town suffered too much interference, so rather than
shag around with the 2.4 GHz link to optimize it ( time was the issue and accessabilty as well) we swapped
bridges ,as the amount of 5GHz signals were much reduced
on the short 0.5 KM link . When feeding data from a 100MB/s ethernet
switch at the internet source ,we achieved 45MB data speed up at the green tank
end on the farm according to chorus speed test ! Plenty useful speed that
Jonno the farmer could tap off at out 4 port switch we mounted on the pole
between between the Cambuim unit and the old 54 Mb bridge ..
the third hop was 1 Km from the green tank to the actual Kiwisdr site . This
was done with the old DSE 54Mb bridge units running 30mW into the 25 dB hills
antennas at each end. this last hop still has more than enough
data speed to run the kiwisdr at 8 channels with waterfalls (
the new update software ! thanks JKS and crew ! )
View of poles seen from green tank 6.6Km
away,, the tank is away on another farm
The Knob close up where we placed to "wifi repeater" on the old water
tank
Solar powered wifi repeater site in "the Knob" ( pole tensioned to minimise wind damage to antennas ) 130w panel ,Mppt regulator and 100A/Hr battery on the old water tank.
The Green Tank " High Spot" on Neils
farm 6.7 Km away from "the Knob "
2.4 GHz CAMBIUM FORCE 200 DISH , "Green tank" end of 2.4 GHz low speed link
25db grid pack Hills antenna , 30mW old 54 mb DSE link !
Kiwisdr end RX et al in Aluminium repeater box
Tilt over mast made from 3.6m 100x100 H4
treated pine was so easy to tilt over !! top section was 6m tapered
fibreglass pole
G5RV antenna almost finished , note tall guy poles so cattle cant reach ropes ....club does not want any Vet Bills !!
Gotta stop the cattle from rubbing on the wooden poles ......... lots of new Barbed wire the bird box houses the 1:1 Balun
Well its all going now and
most of the operation is solar because of the rural situation ,
The site is so quiet ..... with mainly atmospheric noise though I do see
some ethernet noise bumps if I look hard at
the waterfalls.. A little more screening of
ethernet cables inside the sdr container is required ..All in All its been
a big project and Im glad its over it has been technically
challenging but worth it
we have quite often seen S/N performance figures in the high 30's
and into the 40's now and again and it is surprising what you
can hear on 80m at night and during the day if conditions are good
BUT it is, in
the end thanks to the kind sponorship of Neil and
his business "on Site Support " and help and advice from his
son Jonny who runs the farm .