Some photos of the Cambium cnPilot e430w 802.11ac wave 2 dual-band wi-fi wall plate access point.
Some Features
-802.11AC Wave 2
-2×2 MU-MIMO streams.
-Max Data Rates 1.3 Gbps. 867 Mbps (5 GHz), 400 Mbps (2.4 MHz)
-16 SSIDs across 2 radios
Panduit cat6 field terminator rj45 plug
WISP Teamwork to make signals better
This post is a huge shout out to Tasos Alexiou from RF Elements. This story started out at WISPAPALOOZA Vegas this year. I had a few clients who have been fighting noise issues. While working the Cambium booth we would go over the benefits of ePMP for noise mitigation. This would naturally lead to an antenna discussion. You can’t have an antenna discussion without mentioning RF Elements and their horn design. As with anything, clients are skeptical to things outside the conventional way of doing things. It’s not that the client is closed minded, but change becomes a little harder when revenue and cash outlay are involved. I am a very visual guy so I walked several of these clients over to the RF Elements booth so they could see the product and have it explained by the folks themselves.
These clients were getting it, but I could tell they were a little hesitant to make the leap. This is where the teamwork of the story really comes into play. Tasos could sense the same thing I was seeing, and came up with a plan. In the shipment of their gear to Vegas, they had some extra gear. After some negotiation, he told us to stop by after the show and he would see what he could do to get some gear in the hands of both of these clients. After the show, I was able to send both of these clients home with some 30 and 45-degree horns. Not only that, but these clients were able to talk about their specific situations, draw diagrams, and get a great understanding of how to get the best fit out of the equipment.
I am happy to say we have the first results from these horns. Mohave Broadband was able to put up a 30-degree horn in an area where they were having clients with signal and interference issues. By adjusting their 90/120 sectors, which even have beamforming, they were able to have the horn fit in their most troublesome area. Some of the troubles were customers who could not connect on a certain frequency very well, but others could. If the frequencies were changed the good customers became bad and vice versa. Once the horn was in place we noticed a couple of things.
The first was customers in the 30-degree beam of the horn were able to connect at good signals and data rates. These were customers who were pointed right at the sectors before, not ones on the fringes.
Secondly, due to the nature of the horn we were able to select from more channels due to the lack of sidelobes from the horns.
Customer links on the AP.
We could go on and on how the ePMP 2000 APs with their noise filtering, and the “clean” pattern of the horn make the difference but that is not the focus of the article. The focus is how many separate pieces of the WISP community came together to help. From WISPA putting on the show to the willingness of Tasos and RF elements to help these customers, and the ability to sit down and draw out diagrams and antenna placement to get the best place to place antennas. For those of you who don’t attend tradeshows, this is one of the success stories with a few more to come on this blog.
MTIN Family of Sites
https://j2sw.com
https://indycolo.net
https://mtin.net
https://startawisp.info
Frequency does matter
Recently we installed a PTP 550 link for a client. This is a connectorized version with 2-foot dishes on it for a four-mile link. Overkill you say, but the idea is the dishes make up the gain and not transmitter power. A much cleaner signal can be achieved which falls within the FCC guidelines for total EIRP.
So let’s get to it. Our first image is out path. This link had clear line of sight from a 150-foot foot water tower to a 240-foot tower.
Google Earth Path
The 240 Foot tower
150 Foot water tower
After getting out of the cold we let things burn in for a few days. This is what an initial spectrum analysis looked like.
Radio Frequency set on 5820 mhz
Radio Frequency set on 5200mhz
As you can see the RSSI was within 2 DB, which isn’t terrible. However, due to interference, the MCS rates are markedly different, which is what results in the big differences in speed. Please note this is only with one radio enabled and on a 20mhz channel. We fully expect bigger speeds once we up channel sizes and enable the second radio.
Tech Tip: Determining MTU via MacOSX Ping oh yeah and Windows
The command:
ping -D -s 1472
What the command does
ping = Obvious
-D = Don’t fragment
-s <value> = the ping size.
Why did I start with 1472? That is the total packet size plus 28 bytes, which equals a 1500 byte packet.
Example Output:
Justins-MacBook-Pro:~ j2sw$ ping -D -s 1472 4.2.2.2 PING 4.2.2.2 (4.2.2.2): 1472 data bytes 1480 bytes from 4.2.2.2: icmp_seq=0 ttl=57 time=426.164 ms 1480 bytes from 4.2.2.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=57 time=110.762 ms --- 4.2.2.2 ping statistics --- 2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 110.762/268.463/426.164/157.701 ms Justins-MacBook-Pro:~ j2sw$ ping -D -s 1473 4.2.2.2 PING 4.2.2.2 (4.2.2.2): 1473 data bytes ping: sendto: Message too long ping: sendto: Message too long Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
If you want to learn how to do this on windows:
https://kb.netgear.com/19863/Ping-Test-to-determine-Optimal-MTU-Size-on-Router
How to activate Baicells sim cards using the active code
How to activate Baicells sim cards using the activation code
Typically your sim cards will come in a 10 pack. On the back of the box you will see a listing of numbers with an Activation code at the top.
1.Login to the cloud core at https://cloudcore.cloudapp.net/cloudcore
2.Click on the “BOSS” link at the top then Expand network at the left and click on “Sim Card”
- Click on Import at the top. Once there select “Active code” and enter the number next to “AC” on the back of your box. This is the top number highlighted above
Once activated they will show up under your records. More detailed information is available at https://na.baicells.com/getting-started/
Australia’s first transcontinental fibre optic submarine cable
xISP news to start your week
Cambium is doing a WISP survey
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2018_WISP_Survey
IBM to acquire Redhat
https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-acquires-red-hat/
Hurricane Electric expands to H5 in Alberquerque
http://h5datacenters.com/hurricane-electric-expands-with-H5.html
Cambium ePMP photos
Common Questions: masquerade vs src-nat action Mikrotik
One of the common questions I get is what is the difference between Masquerade and SRC-NAt? Which should I use?
The quick answer is to use SRC-NAT if your gateway IP is static, and use masquerade if it can change.
The Mikrotik Wiki Entry
Firewall NAT action=masquerade is unique subversion of action=srcnat, it was designed for specific use in situations when public IP can randomly change, for example DHCP-server changes it, or PPPoE tunnel after disconnect gets different IP, in short – when public IP is dynamic.
Every time interface disconnects and/or its IP address changes, router will clear all masqueraded connection tracking entries that send packet out that interface, this way improving system recovery time after public ip address change.