Using STL dish to share Lan link connection

[BroadcastDoc]

I believe they'll need different IP addresses - they function like WAN routers.

[fmrfman]

Bob:

Here are some links to docs/videos that helped me a lot. You want to setup both units in WDS bridge mode. One will be an Access Point and the other a WDS station. Since we engineer/techs are picture oriented I've posted pics of how both of my units are setup. Yes both units needs to have a unique IP address to work. The following video is a general reference for setting up Ethernet bridges on Ubiquiti units. I would recommend leaving wireless security off while you are getting the units aimed.

Ubiquiti setup video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__xzHnK6IVs

Here is a good Ethernet bridge setup reference document. The first part is a basic primer explaining the basics of how IP addresses work.
The second part deals with setting up a Ubiquiti PtP link:
http://www.broadcastwarehouse.com/media ... ctions.pdf

[countrykev]

Glad to see you got them running. I have a couple of the 900MHz radios that replaced Lanlinks combined into the same antenna. Just unplugged the Moseley and in goes the Ubquiti, and get 20 times the throughput.

I am also using a 5.8GHz AirGrid as a primary STL path with two Barix 500 boxes running in linear PCM mode. Been rock solid in the two years in service.

[fmrfman]

countrykev:

Thanks for sharing your experience. I suspect multitudes of Broadcast Engineers are installing/going to install wireless Ethernet bridges to replace their STLs. When you consider the digital STLs that are being offered are going to run you $10-$20k installed spending $2 to $3K is obviously a much more attractive option. I don't know if I would be fully comfortable pitching these as a replacement for an "old school" STL system. Most of my experience with getting audio to transmitter sites was with satellite receivers as I worked for a national broadcaster.

I would be curious as to how many of the engineers in this forum have replaced their STL with a wireless data link.

[countrykev]

Going forward I have no interest in installing a 950 system unless it is the only option. 950 has served us well, is licensed, and for the most part is rock solid. However, cost advantages aside, you get far more utility from an Ethernet bridge.

[grich]

Glad to see you got them running. I have a couple of the 900MHz radios that replaced Lanlinks combined into the same antenna. Just unplugged the Moseley and in goes the Ubquiti, and get 20 times the throughput...

Which Ubiquiti radios did you use for this?

[countrykev]

The Loco M900

http://www.invictuswireless.com/Loco_M9 ... com900.htm

You'll need an RP-SMA to N adapter, and you can get those for a couple of bucks on eBay.

[fmrfman]

@Countrykev:

I tend to agree with you. Our station operates in a small town. Everyone seems to be going to 5.8ghz but I wasn't expecting to see how crowded this band was when I brought up my units (we do have a WISP in the area). I definitely would feel more confident about the integrity of our link with licensed units as everybody and their brothers are putting up 5.8ghz units now.

There are other manufacturers that make long haul units in that band that are licensed I believe.

[Slab Bulkhead]

The Loco M900

http://www.invictuswireless.com/Loco_M9 ... com900.htm

You'll need an RP-SMA to N adapter, and you can get those for a couple of bucks on eBay.

Thanks for the tip!
We have a Starlink and LanLink combined into dishes, but we've also got a very short (2.25 mile) hop from studio to tower. We went this route to save on rent at the transmitter end (avoiding having to secure a third tower location) and also to avoid concerns by some other users who have a 5.8 link for SCADA data for the water treatment plant where the tower is located. The LanLink works well but it's slow, this looks like a nice way to upgrade speed at a low cost. The only catch for me is that I'd have to buy a serial device server for our RDS which is on one of the LanLink COM ports.

[Xenirad]

Here is one of my customers network that I have built with Ubiquity. Dual links on critical hops with managed switches that have spanning tree capability to prevent loopbacks. The radios on the dual links are Bullet M5 Titanium HP using Andrew dishes the rest are Nanobridge M5. The longest and the last hop in this is 38 miles and there is 10Mbps available there.

[countrykev]

That is really, really, cool! If I am seeing this correctly, you've interconnected each end of the "circuit" so if any of the links go down connectivity lives on at all sites. Very nicely done!

[Xenirad]

That is really, really, cool! If I am seeing this correctly, you've interconnected each end of the "circuit" so if any of the links go down connectivity lives on at all sites. Very nicely done!

Thanks I have learned a lot from building this system. The most important lesson was to use managed switches so you can control the ports when things go wrong.

[fmrfman]

Update

Well it's been a few months. I am seeing 70 to 80 Mbps into the dish at the tower site which is where we need all the bandwidth. I have to assume something as awry though as the TX rate is considerably lower at around 8 to 10 Mbps. I had this asymmetrical TX/RX rates when i first turned it up until I moved down to the lover 5 ghz band and turned on airmax.

I did the speed test every day for at least a month and would reliably see a near 50/50 on the TX/RX rates.

Here is a snapshot of what I am currently getting. If I run the test a few more times it will eventually become more balanced.

Test Results
RX: 72.44 Mbps
TX: 9.45 Mbps
Total: 81.89 Mbps

So I just ran it again while typing this post and it's balanced now???

Test Results
RX: 66.03 Mbps
TX: 51.79 Mbps
Total: 117.82 Mbps

Last week a day before the tower climber was coming out to replace the beacon (which is when the started seeing unbalanced TX/RX rates) the LAN port on the switch starts to blink and I totally lose LAN throughput (the wireless side was o.k.). The next day the tower climber showed up and checked the dish on the way down and he was able to push the connector in a little further and up came the switch on the port. Then I started to see plugged/unplugged on the LAN0 status on the M5 dish.

After checking the Ubiquiti forums these symptoms are a dead ringer for a blown port on the Rocket M5 dish. So I followed advice and set the port at 10 Mbps. It helped a little however it had been highly intermittent as ping checks have been randomly failing and setting off alarms.

As of today the LAN0 status is LAN0 100Mbps-Full and it is steady with only one missed ping report in the logs since Feb 11 at 6pm:

Feb 13 10:45:50 pwdog[6168]: Missed 1 ping replies in a row.

In searching through all the forum posts on this subject it really smells to me like ESD issues on the tower. I re-terminated the switch end of the carrier class toughcable making double sure the ESD drain wire was crimped and not damaged while attaching the connector. I also attached a separate ground wire to the switch which is attached to the equipment rack.

Unfortunately the tower climber wasn't comfortable with attempting a re-termination on the tower end.

[countrykev]

Are your sites high RF environments? Lots o'stuff on the tower?

I've come to learn in the last few months that the Ubiquiti radios can behave very erratically in high RF environments. There are shielding kits they sell to go with many of their radios to help mitigate this.

[fmrfman]

Nada countrykev. 400 ft. tower with 10 bay at the top being injected with 19.5 KW. Dish is just below 200 Ft. We have WISP on our tower quite a bit lower than my WLAN and he is on the opposite 2 legs of the tower.

It has been rock solid up until 3 weeks ago when the LAN port started acting erratically. The real bummer about it all is that I am not a tower climber and with us being non-profit we can't afford to send a climber up on a whim (not to mention our $5 million dollar liability requirements which kills our ability to use "local" affordable labor). Another related issue with installing/maintaining a setup like this is that most of these guys don't do CAT5 terminations.

So the climber I had out a few weeks back pushed the cable up into the M5 receiver and got us back up but ultimately the connection needs to be re-terminated. Have to wait until the tower painters show up in the fall before we'll have someone back up to repair it.