January 17, 2005

Well I mention in a previous article that I installed two MeshAP in January to take advantage of the mild weather.  I also mention that the first installation, shown below, went extremely well.  I spoke to soon.  Since I had problems with the first installation I went back to test the second.

Below is a picture of the Power Box with JB-Mesh Unit (JB-Mesh is MeshAP in a attaché case.) 

The antenna position is located on the side tower and is pointing slightly downward.  The reason for this is I started to climb the antenna tower, It is very old and rusty.  As I got up to the near the top it start to sway. I continue up and then the tower start to bend. I step down and decided this was a good spot.  

The neighbour also has a home built antenna in about the same area. Not good to have to antennae so close to each other. The idea was to link this node with one down the street; unfortunately, that node has too many trees between them.  The site survey showed that two other links were in communication range and that the noise ratio in sigspy had a difference of 8.  This is sufficient to start to mesh and the node did start to mesh. Had I done a proper survey and gone up higher on the pole I believe I would have been able to get the connection that I wanted.

Sometimes you have to be flexible about the situation. Obviously the right way would have been to remove the pole and place a new tower. Also to ensure that radio reception would have taken in account for budding leaves in the spring and summer.

I have to put another node to ensure that this one stays up during the summer months.