Hey Guys. New member here. I've ben rolling the idea of starting a mesh network around in my head for some time and have done a little homework. I think I want to start with ubiquiti equipment. I've narrowed it down to nanostations (not loco) or rockets. Not sure which frequency bands yet. However, I've seen talk of xw, and xm version hardware? I understand that xw won't work with aredn. Also U.S version/international version? How easy is the older xm hardware to find? Is that what I need? Do I need an international version, or will a U.S version work fine? Have looked on ebay and through distributors and can find lots of ubiquiti stuff, but no mention whether it is xw or xm. Just want to hit the ground running with the best chance of success and minimal headaches.
Thanks,
Dan kb0znu
Thanks,
Dan kb0znu
XW hardware is currently only an issue on 5Ghz band devices. In fact AREDN does support Nanostation M5 (XW).
5Ghz has more "part 97 only" channel choices than 2Ghz.
Generally, the 2Ghz equipment is slightly less expensive than 5Ghz.
The US/international version only comes into play with 3Ghz gear. You DO NOT want the M365 gear (US), but, you DO want the M3 (international) gear. If you order from Flytec, you can provide your callsign and they will sell to you.
Darryl
Cool. Flytech was actually one of the web sites I was looking around on today. Their prices look pretty reasonable. Also found another distributor that has used equipment. So this is what I gather so far. I can use any nanostation m2, m5, or m9, and it doesn't matter if it's xm, xw, or international. I'd have to be more careful with the 3 ghz stuff. How about the rockets. Anything I need to watch out for there? Trying to get a few more guys in my club interested, but I'd like to aquire some hardware and know what I'm talking about first before I approach them with the idea. :) Thanks for the help. Dan
AREDN currently supports the Nanostations M5 XW (but not Rockets)
We have published a matrix of supported hardware: http://www.aredn.org/content/supported-platform-matrix
Keep it handy when you're shopping.
Andre, K6AH
Thanks, Ron K7OPA
Managed to find 2 rocket m5's that are supposed to be xm versions. Now trying to find some Omni antennas for a reasonable price, so I can get at least one flashed and stick it up on my tower. Don't really want to boot them up without any antennas. Have also been seriously looking at nanostations. Still here, just slow going. As with all things amature radio, finding the time :)
https://www.aredn.org/content/aredn-announces-upcoming-features-and-devices
The NanoStation NSM2 seems to be one that would work well for me (stealthy, reasonable power/sensitivity, convenient mounting). I am trying to locate the XM version, which is currently the only one supported under AREDN.
This raises two questions:
1. Are all the new NSM2s built with the XW hardware? If so I'll need to isolate my search for used models. I purchased a new one from an Amazon affilliate and to my disappointment, it was an XW version which I will need to return.
2. Is there a way to tell prior to purchasing, based on serial number or manufacturing date, which models are XM?
Thank you,
Kevin KZ3L
New NSM2's are being produced with the XW designator. It generally takes months to get these into the sales channels, and we are now seeing them. I can surmise that they have been in production for at least a few months.
The good news on the NSM2 XW, is that, while they are not officially supported yet in a production release, we are adding support for them in our next release. If you understand the risks (ie. not for "production" use, things may be broken, etc), you can download the AREDN nightly release that DOES load on this device.
As far as I can tell, the only way to tell XM from XW is to boot the device.
Thank you.
It sounds as though things are progressing well for supporting the NSM2 (XW). With this level of confidence I might just hold onto this one.
U-Boot Test reports Bad/Good.
Do I need to downgrade from 5.6.12 to 5.5.x first via XW.v5.5.10-u2.28005.150723.1358.bin,
or just install this file directly from the AirOS interface:
AREDN-develop-169-d18d14f3-ubnt-nano-m-xw-squashfs-factory.bin
Thank you to you and the rest of the development team for all the hard work and many hours that go into these things.
Sounds good--thank you! I'll give it a shot.
Edit: And... it worked without any problems! Thanks again.
Just purchased an amo-5g-13 antenna today. Hope to have the node up and be playing with it in the next month or 2