AREDN Team!
AREDN Help Needed to add 2GHz daughterboard to 5GHz BaseBoxes! Present AREDN FW simply ignores this valuable capability!
It seems very obvious that there is great interest BaseBox units, and especially the BaseBox5 at 5GHz, with the addition of the 2GHz daughterboard.
It appears to offer an excellent Single Source Solution, for both 5GHz and 2GHz, both 2x2, integrated on the same boards, ALL in one weatherproof box, and requiring only a single Data & PoE cable. And a perfect match for many installations, such as with an Altelix high gain, dual band, dual mode, omnidirectional antenna.
Just before I discovered the BaseBox options, I had built a "BigStick" like this, but had to use a pair of Rockets M5 & M2, plus a WX proof PoE switch. At least I got a spare port to feed a cross link NanoStation5 at a different channel. BaseBox5 & 2 would have been better...
Also, there are almost no AREDN boxes that natively offer dual band, both active on AREDN at 5 & 2. HAP Lite, just one. A recent inquiry:
https://www.arednmesh.org/content/are-there-any-routers-support-using-bo...
The BaseBox5&2 package is just too good to pass up!
How can we encourage our AREDN FW Gurus to
a) add this configuration to our AREDN builds, or perhaps
b) create an additional SW to enable easy interoperability?
I suspect that the daughterboard PCI is running via a USB interface, and I anticipate that there are already existing drivers and SW that could activate access and use in AREDN.
Has anybody tried, or had any success, trying to activate the daughterboard, and integrate with the main board and AREDN?
How can we add this very valuable capability to the AREDN System?
Please advise, and Thanks!
Gene :)
N3EV@arrl.net
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Joe AE6XE
I can send you a BB5 with this 2.4GHz daughter card installed in the MiniPCIe slot. That MiniPCIe slot is just a USB connection, not PCIe. So you may have to load all of the USB library and driver packages just to see it. If Joe wants, I can send him this BB5 w/2.4 card to mess with (I've gotten terribly busy since COVID started). I explained my perfect dual-band mesh node setup in the link that Gene cited above and for $40 extra (the cost of the 2.4GHz MiniPCIe card) you would think that many AREDN users would want to do this.
-Damon K9CQB
Joe AE6XE
Just wondering if there is any update on getting the 2GHz daughter board recognized. For such a small add on price, if that could also be fully recognized and meshed, this platform could be gold!
I need to find the time to recode the setup UI to allow for 2 wireless interfaces...
Joe AE6XE
I'm so excited to get this dual-band-mesh node capability. Imagine a battery/solar powered node with a 5GHz PtP dish and a 2.4GHz Omni to provide a large community with mesh access. The tower space (physical space) and battery power difference between running a single BB5 w/2.4GHz card compared to running 2 mesh node with a DtD link between them is probably considerable. I also want to put one of these on top of my van with a dual-band Omni for tactical deployment of AREDN.
- Damon K9CQB
Also, there are also 2 different 2.4GHz MiniPCIe cards available, a low power and a high power version (I've documented the model numbers elsewhere). I sent Joe the high power version. I'm not sure if that makes a difference either.
-Damon K9CQB
Gene,
1) the current nightly builds work with this device including the daughter 2GHz board. However, the configuration to use both at the same time for mesh RF needs to be encoded into the UI. One might manually edit config files until then, but this gets a bit complex as the routing and firewall settings also need to be updated -- this is a new zone-interface and additional row-column to the matrix of routing and firewall rules will need to be added. We can't simply bridge the 2 wireless interfaces together and munge all traffic on both RF bands -- would be loss of performance or inefficient.
2) This is the process another group used to return the boards:
"Hello, Joe! I've already deleted all emails with details of that
problem. But I'll try to recall something. As a result we've returned
all that cards (~50 units) back to Mikrotik. RouterOS has been able to
work with that cards, but shown a much less transmit dBm's than what
has been specified on the Mikrotik's website for this model. It has
been good news for us, since it is a better reason for return than
"ath9k failed to manage these cards". Mikrotik guy has asked us to
send him a supout.rif and some time later they have accepted to get
the cards back. The end of the story. We think that Mikrotik has
flashed an invalid content to that eeproms."
3) It my take some effort to exchange boards. It's best that if I spend my time, I spend it on coding the UI for this, so better if I send the bad board back to you all for consolidation and do 1 exchange.
Joe AE6XE
Randy
N1VTT
While an image will already install, or may need minor changes to install, the functionality isn't yet in the firmware to support 2 radio devices, both for mesh RF. The current state allows combinations of LAN-AP, Wifi-client, and mesh RF.
Joe AE6XE