Hello everybody,
I'm needing more information and guidance on how to aim antennas
My last attempt should have been a relatively easy task. I've got a QRT approx 7 miles from a Sector antenna. All my descriptions are from the point of beign at the QRT with admin control, and no admin control of the sector. Both are on rooftops and there is clear LOS between them. When using the sound based snr aiming tool I can get as much as high 30s for snr so I lock it down. My error rate when Babel decides to connect ends up being high 30's to above 50% and the device disconnects itself. It had a connection with 10Mb or better speed and I was able to use the connection before it disconnected.
A friend said earlier that error rate is more important now than snr. So I played around de-aiming so that the result was that my snr and nsnr would be similar. Here's the problem. I have to reboot the node to force Babel to try again to connect, and this takes FOREVER. There is in Internal Services/Advanced Options a restart Babel and hard restart Babel toggle. When I chose these they don't seem to do anything. To make things even more spooky, I'm at a site with multiple devices all POE from one switch, and the other devices report no errors dtd but my device reported 30% errors dtd. It makes no sense. To get rid of all the displayed dtd errors I had eventually to reboot the entire POE switch. Hmmm.
When I degraded by re-aiming so my snr locally dropped to mid 20s I got a connection again in the mid 30 error rate. However once Babel would allow me to navigate again to the other node the error rate and snr reported there disagree with what I see from my side. Eventually however, it stabilized and did not drop the connection. I decided to test further and ran Iperf3 tests between the nodes several times. I got a good throughput and when done, my node said my error rate was now 4%! The other node agreed more or less, and I was thrilled. Then I checked again five minutes later and the error rate had climbed back into the mid 30s ... while the nodes were idle.
Part of my problem is that you have to see the snr and error rates from the antenna on the other end of your connection, and if Babel won't allow the connection you can't see it to adjust and try things. The wifi signal tool shows local and remote ... but here's the main problem. I don't get a report of remote snr until there is a connection that Babel approves, so I can't see while aiming if I'm helping or hurting the connection from the perspective of the other node. I guess when the signal is blocked by Babel due to the other node deciding the connection isn't good enough ... how do I force it to accept the connection long enough to get return metrics and how do I encourage the other node I have no control over to retry? Is there a built in time limit? What makes a node unblock a connection that was previously blocked to do error rate?
I'd like to be able to choose to hear the snr from the other node I'm aming at before Babel decides the connection is adequate to use. In the past we could force OLSR to accept a poor connection for a temporary period so we could troubleshoot. Perhaps there could be a setting to force Babel to connect even though bad quality for fifteen minutes ... to allow for aiming and testing?
Anyway ... it's weird. I'd like to understand how I can have a connection report tx 100%, have 45Mbps (yes the picture below is different rate but it took ten minutes to take screen shot and post and the metric changes) (Iperf3 reports about 15), but it says I have 36% errors? IAnd this doesn't jive with what I see if I click the node and see the detail. And why would running Iperf3 change the reported error rate downwards?
I'm needing more information and guidance on how to aim antennas
My last attempt should have been a relatively easy task. I've got a QRT approx 7 miles from a Sector antenna. All my descriptions are from the point of beign at the QRT with admin control, and no admin control of the sector. Both are on rooftops and there is clear LOS between them. When using the sound based snr aiming tool I can get as much as high 30s for snr so I lock it down. My error rate when Babel decides to connect ends up being high 30's to above 50% and the device disconnects itself. It had a connection with 10Mb or better speed and I was able to use the connection before it disconnected.
A friend said earlier that error rate is more important now than snr. So I played around de-aiming so that the result was that my snr and nsnr would be similar. Here's the problem. I have to reboot the node to force Babel to try again to connect, and this takes FOREVER. There is in Internal Services/Advanced Options a restart Babel and hard restart Babel toggle. When I chose these they don't seem to do anything. To make things even more spooky, I'm at a site with multiple devices all POE from one switch, and the other devices report no errors dtd but my device reported 30% errors dtd. It makes no sense. To get rid of all the displayed dtd errors I had eventually to reboot the entire POE switch. Hmmm.
When I degraded by re-aiming so my snr locally dropped to mid 20s I got a connection again in the mid 30 error rate. However once Babel would allow me to navigate again to the other node the error rate and snr reported there disagree with what I see from my side. Eventually however, it stabilized and did not drop the connection. I decided to test further and ran Iperf3 tests between the nodes several times. I got a good throughput and when done, my node said my error rate was now 4%! The other node agreed more or less, and I was thrilled. Then I checked again five minutes later and the error rate had climbed back into the mid 30s ... while the nodes were idle.
Part of my problem is that you have to see the snr and error rates from the antenna on the other end of your connection, and if Babel won't allow the connection you can't see it to adjust and try things. The wifi signal tool shows local and remote ... but here's the main problem. I don't get a report of remote snr until there is a connection that Babel approves, so I can't see while aiming if I'm helping or hurting the connection from the perspective of the other node. I guess when the signal is blocked by Babel due to the other node deciding the connection isn't good enough ... how do I force it to accept the connection long enough to get return metrics and how do I encourage the other node I have no control over to retry? Is there a built in time limit? What makes a node unblock a connection that was previously blocked to do error rate?
I'd like to be able to choose to hear the snr from the other node I'm aming at before Babel decides the connection is adequate to use. In the past we could force OLSR to accept a poor connection for a temporary period so we could troubleshoot. Perhaps there could be a setting to force Babel to connect even though bad quality for fifteen minutes ... to allow for aiming and testing?
Anyway ... it's weird. I'd like to understand how I can have a connection report tx 100%, have 45Mbps (yes the picture below is different rate but it took ten minutes to take screen shot and post and the metric changes) (Iperf3 reports about 15), but it says I have 36% errors? IAnd this doesn't jive with what I see if I click the node and see the detail. And why would running Iperf3 change the reported error rate downwards?
The issue isn't where I am placing the antenna, the issue is how to interpret and use the tools. We cannot have perfection, I'm working with what I got. The problem is understanding fully what the metrics tell me and having control over Babel long enough to make good choices.