Site Summit MESH Node Status – Lookin’ Good
In the previous blog post we mentioned that we installed a MESH node at the Site Summit repeater site. To be more specific, this included a Ubiquiti Rocket M3 Radio attached to a Ubiquiti airMAX High Gain Sector, Model AM-3G18. This provides 120 degrees of coverage and was installed with a boresite of 295 degrees true north and tilt angle of -5 degrees.
The purpose of this installation is to provide and access point to the Anchorage MESH from the Valley, to provide initial MESH coverage for the Eagle River Bowl, and to provide additional coverage for the north of Anchorage.
Today, I did some signal/connectivity survey work in the Eagle River/Chugiak, and Birchwood areas, and also made my way out to JBER and the EARS station to see how things looked. As a side note, when we installed the node I noted that they unit indicated it saw the EARS node on JBER, it really was not an adequate connection for traffic transfer.
My survey today confirmed what our path study indicated. We had good connectivity to the Summit node using the AARC’s portable NanoStation M3 unit from Eagle River High School, the Carrs parking lot, Harry McDonald Center, and the Birchwood airport. In short, if you can “see” Site Summit from anywhere in the Eagle River/Chugiak/Birchwood areas, you should be able to have a workable connection using a NanoStation M3 unit.
I then headed out to JBER and found that anywhere I could visibly “see” the Site Summit complex, I could make a usable connection. When I arrived at the EARS club station, I found a location in the parking lot to test the portable node and found that I could make a good solid connection to Site Summit with a throughput of about 36 Mbps. This suggests that a little adjustment to the aiming of the current EARS node should provide for a similarly sold connect. I’ll make the trip in the next few days to make those adjustments.
I anticipate that the node is reachable from many points throughout the north Anchorage area. I’ve attached a coverage map here to give a sense of the anticipated coverage area.
If you’d like to learn more about the MESH, please contact Kent, KL5T at mesh@kl7aa.net.
73,
Kent, KL5T
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