New wisp's

best we can get

Spirit USB Wifi adapter + 5m USB cable + laptop running netstumbler + car = decent wardriving tool.

Radio traffic increase :

I live on a farm quite far out near Durbanville (35 min). Six months ago I didn't get any wifi signals entering our property or on our road... a few days ago (October '05) I tried wardriving again using the same setup and found 9 signals while driving down the road we're on.

A thing or two about wireless...

Well, we're on a farm, best we can get is ISDN, which isn't an "always-on" connection and works out quite expensive even though it is possible to pull about 9GB out of our line per month in total regardless of whether it's international or local.

A year ago we tried getting wireless from Uninet. To cut a long (and I do mean long story short, it took about 38 phone calls before they came and checked our farm for a suitable signal.

Fifty rand later and the result was "sorry sir, no usable signals here". The guy who tested the site said that Uninet was probably going to have some sort of AP closer to us up in the near future (2 months from then).

6 months came and went and the site survey was repeated (admittedly the second time they responded much faster).

The result was the same, no usable signal. The tester was using a Yagi 7dbi (possibly 12dbi) antenna and a Linux laptop.

Wireless Online checked our site too, they also couldn't find a usable signal...

Meanwhile Telkom started promoting ADSL on TV and other media... fast and cheap... well... that was kinda frustrating.

It got worse when Mweb (they're currently our ISP) started sending us e-mail and even sent us an imaginative brochure about how great their ADSL service is and why we should get it.

Frustrating! :mad:

I went googling and found a great site about how you can build your own wifi antenna -> http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz .

Using modified bits and peices I built an antenna that allowed my usb adapter to pick up some APs from Maasrecht, namely MS-12, MS-71, MS-13 and WINX.

I've just got a 27dbi parabolic-dish with feed on trial. I've got this dish connected to a 32Mw D-Link AP via a short (20cm shielded, low loss) cable.

It's got LOS to Tygerberg Transmitter towers (15KM away).

So far I can pick up :

WINX, MS-12, MS-13, MS-71, Currant-tygervalley (also known as currantT) and a few other nets of negligible strength (less than 4 RSSI or 15% signal strength).

I'm probably going to phone both Uninet and Wireless Online on Monday and find out if they can give me some sort of trial connection, just to test the quality of the link.

If anyone has any tips of any kind concerning wireless links over 15KMs, speak up! please.

Other than that, yar... all this because of Telkom :p

I'm also kinda worried about one basic bit of technological sense about all this. I can receive their signal... but can they receive my signal ? Is 32 mW strong enough to go 15KM ?
 
Regarding you 32mW Dlink AP, these guys connected over 89 km
with 32mW and 10 foot satellite dishes
http://www.wifi-shootout.com/archive/2004/index.htm


Miro are one of 3 suppliers for Mikrotik Wireless H/W. www.mikrotik.com
www.miro.co.za
http://www.miro.co.za/stage/intranet/wireless.php?section=Mikrotik

Where to obtain the software
Download and burn iso to CD http://www.mikrotik.com/download.html#v2
Beware it does overwrite you hard drive.

Some folks are using the Senao Bridges connected to Hyperlink Technologies 24 dB Grid (supplied by Miro) absolutely terrible web interface especially if you are trying to line it up, but the best would be to purchase a MikroTik Routerboard Rb532 with a Level 4 license with a mini-PCI 100 mW card.

http://www.miro.co.za/stage/intranet/datasheet.php?id=16

I reckon if you get no joy from sales at Uninet speak to David Jarvis (MD).
They are busy implementing 120 odd ap's for the Knysna municipality
obviously with Telkom bleating especially as the Knysna Muni do not have a VANS license and using Uninet;s license.

Long Distance links: (>50km)
129 km link http://forum.mikrotik.com//viewtopi...+hotspot&sid=6eacf1dd7097d46ac5fca11931b37198

Great page pointing you to various long distance links
http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/LongShots

Seems to be a very popular AP (install a small linux os called openwrt)
http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/LinksysWrt54g
http://martybugs.net/wireless/openwrt/

Excellent Reference (if you are into Linux)
http://martybugs.net/wireless/
 
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Defintely agreed on the stuff from Miro - D-link... hmmm

Senao are excellent, but as kilos said - terrible Web Interface, and stay away from the 802.11g models - stick to the 802.11b.

Your best bet probably would be a Mikrotik Routerboard, but it's probably a little cheaper to go the Wrap Board route with 2 slots for AP's, and definitely only the Atheros AP boards - dual bands are excellent, and 5.8 band is much less noisy. The antennas are smaller too, but who would you link to?

Distance-wise, with a big enough antenna (24 or more dBi Grid on either end or both) you should get about as far as you want...
 
aquarat said:
Using modified bits and peices I built an antenna that allowed my usb adapter to pick up some APs from Maasrecht, namely MS-12, MS-71, MS-13 and WINX.

...

WINX, MS-12, MS-13, MS-71, Currant-tygervalley (also known as currantT) and a few other nets of negligible strength (less than 4 RSSI or 15% signal strength).
Click to expand...

Check out this topic: http://www.ctwug.za.net/forum_viewtopic.php?4.206
 
funny how there seem to be no new wisp's popping up in the durban area.
 
I'm just reading how these guys are slating WISPS and saying how good ADSL is comparatively.

One thing you all missing is the cap. That is why WISPS are always gonna be better. I have a 128Kb uncapped wireless solution that allows P2P after hours. I can easily do 10gigs a month without trying very hard. If I had to get a 10gig ADSL solution, that would cost me at least R600 and that excludes your Telkom fees. So don't hate, please! :mad:
 
diebaas said:
They're scared of the durbanoids.
Click to expand...

hehe... damn I missed that comment back them :p


ThatOtherGuy
WISPs have their purpose and I'm not going to start this who debate on the good and bad of WISPs.

but on the issue of no cap with WISPs... 100% and the cheapest uncapped ADSL you can get is R999 even that is well thresholded.
Often with WISPs you dont know what you in for. they say 128k but you only get 64k sometimes. you dont know if the block p2p or not.
some WISPs are awesome and care... most are not.

the main reason why WISPs get slated in this forum is because they use the ISM band (unlicensed band) to make money. if they could get spectrum those WISPs that are serious would buy spectrum but they just cant. so i feel for the WISPs in that regard. but when they come a blast the ISM band and make it unusable for what it is meant to be used for then people start to get a lettle peeved
 
ThatOtherGuy said:
I'm just reading how these guys are slating WISPS and saying how good ADSL is comparatively.

One thing you all missing is the cap. That is why WISPS are always gonna be better. I have a 128Kb uncapped wireless solution that allows P2P after hours. I can easily do 10gigs a month without trying very hard. If I had to get a 10gig ADSL solution, that would cost me at least R600 and that excludes your Telkom fees. So don't hate, please! :mad:
Click to expand...

I can do 10gig a day without paying any monthly bill, all this on my wug connection.
 
Well we are upgrading our network as we speak so just a matter of time and we'll be flying again.
 
Bah im hoping our WUG will handle decent speeds when its under load.
Skydog, Ryder are you guys running QoS on your WUG's?
 
Rocket-Boy said:
Bah im hoping our WUG will handle decent speeds when its under load.
Skydog, Ryder are you guys running QoS on your WUG's?
Click to expand...

Nothing to mention... a couple of the guys throttle when CSS is on (every night) but nothing major...

Our speeds are very good, the links cope well!
 
hmm with the few users we have on ours atm there seems to be a bit of issue on that side, maybe we just need to revise our routing.

Off topic i was in jhb last week and there are a HUGE amount of antennas floating around there, the noise must be massive!
 
Rocket-Boy said:
hmm with the few users we have on ours atm there seems to be a bit of issue on that side, maybe we just need to revise our routing.

Off topic i was in jhb last week and there are a HUGE amount of antennas floating around there, the noise must be massive!
Click to expand...

Yup, its pretty hectic! Thanks Wisps!! :mad:
 
Kloon said:
been to cpt lately?
Click to expand...

Heh, yeah it was hectic there too.
The main thing i noticed about JHB was the size of the antenna arrays they had up, sure you saw the odd panel, yagi and omni but there were some rigs with a good few sectors on them with directional backhauls etc.
Are those all WISP's or are companies linking offices together like that?

those commercial things really need to operate on a different band!
 
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