140m wifi range required in a less than ideal environment.

Avalon · 4 Nov 2015 at 21:45

Through a series of events that will take more therapy than i've got time, let alone money for, 'we' own a static caravan on a Haven site. This little 'home from home' while lovely and relaxing, is lacking one crucial thing, wifi. Despite being assured would be rolled out to the site 'soon', soon seems to have become 2-3 years. I'll be bald by then.

In simple terms I have a 140m distance between me and the nearest AP, I can erect a 1m pole on the van to elevate my antennae and i'm planning on using a Microstation 2 LOCO as it's directional and I need to stay on 2.4GHz, the total elevation will be over 4m but doesn't have perfect LOS and the Fresnel zone has a load of other aluminium clad signal blockers in it. Have I got the slightest chance surrounded by this lot, or should I be making friends with someone who is closer and has a better LOS to relay using a P2P set-up?

I only need to get a few mbit out of this, nothing heavy, just VPN file access and the odd RDP/VNC session though voip would be a bonus as my main need is for work access.

Steveocee · 4 Nov 2015 at 21:48

140m is nothing. Should be ok even if LOS isn't brilliantly clear.

Randall8686 · 4 Nov 2015 at 21:59

Steveocee said:
140m is nothing. Should be ok even if LOS isn't brilliantly clear.

you having a laugh ? 140M is a long way for wifi, standard multi directional antennas will not get 140M under those conditions. however a patch panel will easily do that sort of range. I managed 2800M (yes 2.8km) on two 5ghz patch antennas, (5ghz has less range than 2.4)140m is more than possible do you have any details on the AP ?

Caged · 4 Nov 2015 at 22:08

Ubiquiti NanoStation Loco M2 or M5 (depending on the AP) in station mode. Job done.

Avalon · 4 Nov 2015 at 22:15

It's commercial grade HP stuff covering the owners lounge and main bar areas. I didn't do a site survey but it extends 15m+ outside via my mobile all be it the data transfer rate starts to drop off sharply.

If it were p2p and I could install both ends it'd be a non event, I've seen campus installs building to building previously with little issues and even the TP link stuff will do over 1km outside, my convern is the vans around bouncing signal all over so I assumed an on I would be worse than a directional solution.

Randall8686 · 4 Nov 2015 at 22:23

2.4ghz has OKish penetration certainly wont be a problem getting through a caravan or two.

Avalon · 4 Nov 2015 at 22:36

The yacht/boat lot claim a Bullet 2HP with omni will hold a connection a few miles off shore, my concern was the other vans bouncing signals which you don't get much of out at sea. I've ordered a NanoStation LOCO 2 and will report back.

Thanks for the sanity check

Steveocee · 5 Nov 2015 at 08:23

Randall8686 said:
you having a laugh ? 140M is a long way for wifi, standard multi directional antennas will not get 140M under those conditions. however a patch panel will easily do that sort of range. I managed 2800M (yes 2.8km) on two 5ghz patch antennas, (5ghz has less range than 2.4)140m is more than possible do you have any details on the AP ?

No not having a laugh. I regularly install connections 5Km+ on 5ghz. Longest to date is 16.5Km. You just need the right kit at either end.

@OP A Bullet2 with a yagi antenna will get you a connection, they're legacy kit at my place and we actively swap them for newer 5G kit now but it pains me to take them off as I know they are the "old reliable" and will get a connection.

Avalon · 5 Nov 2015 at 10:21

Steveocee said:
No not having a laugh. I regularly install connections 5Km+ on 5ghz. Longest to date is 16.5Km. You just need the right kit at either end.

@OP A Bullet2 with a yagi antenna will get you a connection, they're legacy kit at my place and we actively swap them for newer 5G kit now but it pains me to take them off as I know they are the "old reliable" and will get a connection.

I can see from other forums that the bullet has a reputation for doing really well, the boating lot seem to love them. A high street store sells the 5GHz Ubiquiti kit, but not 2.4 and the AP is 2.4 based. As i'm up tomorrow night it came down to a TPLink CPE which on paper looked decent but the reviews were mixed. In fairness it's more consumer grade and consumers in general aren't comfortable with networking, stand out comment being 'it only does WEP in bridge mode' or NS2 LOCO via the rain forest. If it doesn't work out then at worst i'm £40ish out of pocket, it'll probably sell for not much less on an auction site. From looking at google earth if the shortest path is a problem then I can see a longer 250m path with a clearer LOS, if that doesn't work then I can always see who fancies hosting some kit in return for free wifi etc. and I buy more kit.

Quick question, i'm assuming the normal practice of using a dedicated AP to redistribute the connection to local clients is still best?

Thanks again for the comments... and not a single 'dag' joke

Rozzy85 · 5 Nov 2015 at 18:56

Best scenario is two high gain directional antennas aligned to each other but that means installing one at source if you would even be allowed to. If you didn't want to spend much money then two routers in bridge mode and some decent antennas would work great.

You can always stick the NanoStation onto a parabolic dish (maybe try and get an old Sky Dish for cheap somewhere) for more gain if it doesn't work rather than sell it on. It'd be more difficult to align and need to be mounted solid on the roof above all the other caravans but 140M or even 250M would be a piece of cake.

Avalon · 7 Nov 2015 at 13:28

It's peeing it down and cold but it's working, I started with dangling it out of the window and found the AP/locked, it'll hold a 1/1mbit connection but even elevating it to 4m in height seems to have made very little difference.

Horizontal / Vertical:-75 / -75 dBm
Noise Floor:-98 dBm
Transmit CCQ:15 %
TX/RX Rate:1 Mbps / 18 Mbps
airMAX: N/A

I'll play about with the transmit power etc. later tonight, but any suggestions on improving it would be appreciated

*edit* Just tested in the complex and the speed test results are equally poor on my phone today so I'll hang fire till later on.

Steveocee · 7 Nov 2015 at 18:12

Transmit power will only really increase your TX rate and you need to try and ensure you stay within UK OFCOM regs which I think is about 50mw or 20dB total eirp.

Surprising that height isn't increasing it as you'd be over the other dwellings. Out of interest, what speed do y get if you connect to the AP with a laptop and stand under it?

Sumanji · 7 Nov 2015 at 18:20

Sounds like a job for wok-fi!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WokFi

Avalon · 12 Nov 2015 at 11:38

Steveocee said:
Transmit power will only really increase your TX rate and you need to try and ensure you stay within UK OFCOM regs which I think is about 50mw or 20dB total eirp.

Surprising that height isn't increasing it as you'd be over the other dwellings. Out of interest, what speed do y get if you connect to the AP with a laptop and stand under it?

I'll be honest I went up expecting this to be easier than it was (naive), eg point it roughly where it needs to be and off we go then fine tune angle and power as I figured it may not need maximum. As it turns out it was blowing a gale (exposed coastal site) and raining like Noah should have had his boat built and ready to go. I was 2m up a ladder with another 2m of extension pole trying to carefully rotate the NS2 carefully while my ladders sank into the now waterlogged ground with no direct sight of the screen or the target and having to rely on the wife to feed me data. It wasn't ideal if i'm honest.

I'm back up this weekend and i'm taking portable power so I can work out where the signal is best and how far I can get away with. The site is also on a slight incline which I hadn't allowed for. Also having tested int he complex the wifi is sub 1mbit down at source (maxes at 4mbit up) so the new plan is to test it when it's quiet early in the morning.

Sumanji said:
Sounds like a job for wok-fi!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WokFi

From WokFi I had envisaged this involving persons of a smaller stature dressed in furry suits, i'd even thought far enough ahead as to remember the 'Caravan of Courage' film staring said characters, i'm now slightly disappointed. But yes I have a 60cm dish and i'm not afraid to use it if needs be

bledd · 12 Nov 2015 at 11:52

What you want is something like a pair of Ubiquiti Nanostation M5, with direct line of sight. But I doubt they'd let you fit this to just one caravan and their office.

Avalon · 12 Nov 2015 at 15:47

bledd. said:
What you want is something like a pair of Ubiquiti Nanostation M5, with direct line of sight. But I doubt they'd let you fit this to just one caravan and their office.

Agreed on the p2p side, i've seen threads on this forum and several others with multi km LOS links that perform perfectly. After this weekend and some more testing i'll know if it's worth going higher gain/dish (60cm is already on site). If I can show proof of concept the site facilities guy has all but said they'll start installing the kit for other owners (at a massive mark-up no doubt), but without a working POC I can't see them budging on the site side of things. I have a horrible feeling that the individual connection limit is set to something like 1mbit per user based on the historic speed testing, but I should know more once i'm up at the weekend. Just ordered an invertor for the car to go war driving rather than using a UPS.

Hyburnate · 13 Nov 2015 at 15:40

bledd. said:
What you want is something like a pair of Ubiquiti Nanostation M5, with direct line of sight. But I doubt they'd let you fit this to just one caravan and their office.

I disagree.

The Nanostation M5 is limited to 10/100. I don't think I'd want to install that purely looking towards the future, the Airmax Rocket 5ac is more what I'd be after

Avalon · 13 Nov 2015 at 16:17

Hyburnate said:
I disagree.

The Nanostation M5 is limited to 10/100. I don't think I'd want to install that purely looking towards the future, the Airmax Rocket 5ac is more what I'd be after

If we get to a situation where by 100mbit is limiting for me in this application (2-4mbit would suffice), then i'd be amazed. For other applications, yes, 5Ghz is the go-to option and I agree a higher capacity link would make more sense long term as we're not that far off 100mbit being inadequate for a WAN facing connection, but in this case 5ghz won't work as the AP is 2.4Ghz and I can't install anything at the other end.

The rain forest people seem to be employing monkeys to do delivery stuff this week as my power invertor just failed delivery. It made it as far as reception, but even with the aid of a map and directions the driver failed the delivery rather than walk 25m. Plan B involves a 1000w UPS and an IEC extension lead.

Hyburnate · 13 Nov 2015 at 18:41

Avalon said:
If we get to a situation where by 100mbit is limiting for me in this application (2-4mbit would suffice), then i'd be amazed. For other applications, yes, 5Ghz is the go-to option and I agree a higher capacity link would make more sense long term as we're not that far off 100mbit being inadequate for a WAN facing connection, but in this case 5ghz won't work as the AP is 2.4Ghz and I can't install anything at the other end.

The rain forest people seem to be employing monkeys to do delivery stuff this week as my power invertor just failed delivery. It made it as far as reception, but even with the aid of a map and directions the driver failed the delivery rather than walk 25m. Plan B involves a 1000w UPS and an IEC extension lead.

bledd. was talking about Point-to-Point as was I, this would include fixing a device at their end. I was just stating that if you're going to bother with installing something to just install something more future proof.

Avalon · 16 Nov 2015 at 14:24

Hyburnate said:
bledd. was talking about Point-to-Point as was I, this would include fixing a device at their end. I was just stating that if you're going to bother with installing something to just install something more future proof.

Fair enough, if I get the choice it'd be a 5ghz p2p but they're obviously quite reluctant to let me do anything at the site end which I can understand.

I did a little war driving with my laptop and an APC UPS/IEC strip to supply PoE to the NS2. It turns out that the price one pays for a sea view is a massive drop in CCQ, by massive i'm talking 85-95% down to 15% and Stability>Speed for me. Back to the drawing board short term, I have a fortnight to find a solution, my current thinking is this:

Option 1: Bullet 2HP and either a 14-18db panel or 24db parabolic grid. This is the most expensive and potentially least aesthetically pleasing option (grid is large) so a 14db panel may be a better fit for both considerations than a large grid.

Option 2: My old WRT54GS and a 16db Yagi or a 14-18db panel. I'd still need to run a local router for best practice and it's not an easy install as i'd need to mount an external box/run power or convert my router to run on PoE. I've read the indestructible on this.

Current thinking is the Bullet 2HP gives the same sort of performance as a full NS2 combined with the versatility of being able to choose a grid/omni/panel down the line for comparatively little cost. If I have no choice but to site hardware at a neighbors van then a bullet/omni is a lot less intrusive so I think it's probably the better choice but i'm open to suggestions.

*edit* After giving this some thought i've discounted any of the panel/omni options, the RF is likely bouncing off the aluminium skin of the neighboring vans causing the CCQ issues. If I have a narrow and more tightly focused beam then this should help to reduce the effects at least in one direction. First step is to test with a cheap Yagi, if this works then I can look for a more suitable long term solution like a Ubiquiti PBE-M2-400 PowerBeam M2, if it doesn't then i'm only out of pocket on a relatively inexpensive Yagi.