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900mhz node availability

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AA4AG
900mhz node availability

Our group needs additional 900mz nodes. Looks like m9 and m900 are no longer in production. What is the future of 900mhz mesh nodes? Will other equipment be supported?

nc8q
nc8q's picture
Will other equipment be supported?

"The AREDN firmware is based on OpenWrt with additional packages and patches."

So, for [any,new] devices to be suitable for AREDN firmware, they must first be shown in the OpenWRT 'Table of Hardware'.

"Will other equipment be supported?"
Likely, as the last 2 new devices to be added was circa
September 15 for the Rocket M with USB device and
May 15 for the Meraki MR16.

"What is the future of 900mhz mesh nodes?"
I am uncertain, but I have been able to grow our network by adding 5 GHz devices.
There is a much larger number of types of devices for 5 GHz, than for 900, 3400, and 2400 MHz.

"Our group needs additional 900mz nodes."
Would you be willing to discuss why your group needs additional 900 MHz devices?
Why would not additional 5 GHz devices fulfill your group's need?

Chuck

AJ6GZ
900
Mikrotik also stopped making their 900Mhz radio about 5 years ago (they looked like a Metal 52ac). Since the ISM and Ham bands are the same there is no benefit in terms of clear frequencies, maybe power but nothing we used off the shelf was high powered anyway. If you really need 900 (I know... trees....) there are still some commercial ethernet bridge radios out there but most cost a pretty penny. There is no reason to need to run AREDN code on them as they could just act as DtD links. I think the consumer level stuff has all moved on from 900 unfortunately. On a side note, the MikroTik 900Mhz model was really their 2.4Ghz radio downconverted to 900 internally. Maybe the more RF engineer types here could tackle that, if it's really worth it?
AA4AG
Our land is flat

Our land is flat and we do not have any high structures to clear the trees. We have two M900 nodes that provide a stable signal where 2.5ghz would not work.  We were able to use two M5s with dishes to get a 25 meg stable signal over some trees.  Too many huge and healthy trees. 

I was looking at the commercial 900mhz nodes to tie in a few remote locations. Need to figure out the max power with antenna configuration to be legal.

nc8q
nc8q's picture
Too many huge and healthy trees.

Too many huge and healthy trees here and our terrain is rolling. +/- 200' hills and valleys.

I am not seeing any 900 MHz nodes on the AREDN-Map in your state.

Our area has one 900 MHz link at 52 TxMbps spanning ~740 feet.

I also tried 900, 2397, and 3400 MHz.
My success came with a 5 GHz dish at 49 feet a.g.l. to another dish at 120' a.g.l. spanning 2.6 miles...
of which 1.5 miles is 'through the trees'.

Using 900 MHz (with so little band space) to expand an existing 900 MHz multi-node network will be awkward.

I, too, mixed Ubiquiti devices with 3rd party dish-reflectors.
I found the dish-reflectors rather heavy and awkward to maintain a solid mounting.
The solid metal reflectors had significant wind resistance.

I have had success with the Mikrotik LHG series dishes.
Comparatively very much lighter and less wind resistance.

Much of our success in access to tall structures has been from working with
(one) government and (one) commercial entity and (one) ham radio club that
were amenable to groups whose purpose is to serve the community.

Many of our failures are due to installing nodes below the peak of ones roof.
:-|
 

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