[Commotion-discuss] Picostation mesh with APs

[Josh Harle]

Hi Ryan,

Very strange.  My setup has been pretty much identical: picos on the
ground, no more than 200 (between 30-200m), and only 1 or two connections
to the access points (just turning the AP on caused the mesh connections to
degrade).

Did you adjust the tx output for any of these?  I have tried at both 17,
20, and 28 dBm, with the same behaviour.

Adam Steele suggested that CPU usage might be a contributing factor, but
this doesn't entirely explain why it happens only when more than one AP
interface is on.



Kind Regards,

Dr Josh Harle
____________________
http://joshharle.com
http://tacticalspace.org
ph: +61 (0)491 155 985

On 8 March 2015 at 06:52, Ryan Gerety <gerety at opentechinstitute.org> wrote:

> Hi Josh,
>
> Yes, the nodes were access points and mesh links.
>
> It may have been that having pico stations on the ground (not on the roof)
> at no more than 200 meters apart avoided some of the wireless problems that
> can happen when a device is speaking to devices close by and other routers
> further away. Or, it could be that the number of connections to the access
> points were relatively small (because they were covering a small area).
>
> I think there needs to be more testing of this phenomena (maybe someone
> knows of some research or would do some testing?).
>
> Best,
> Ryan
>
>
> On Mar 7, 2015, at 3:29 AM, Josh Harle wrote:
>
> Hi Ryan,
>
> Just confused what your set-up was for
> https://commotionwireless.net/blog/2013/10/30/building-popup-mesh-networks/,
> since I am using the same hardware and presumably similar firmware version,
> and your numbers seem good.  I'm imagining that a number of those nodes
> were APs too, since you had clients connecting and testing?
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Dr Josh Harle
> ____________________
> http://joshharle.com
> http://tacticalspace.org
> ph: +61 (0)409 771 163
>
> On 4 March 2015 at 01:25, Ryan Gerety <gerety at opentechinstitute.org>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> We experienced the same issue while setting up a 10 node network
>> recently. We turned off the access points on all the rooftop/mesh nodes,
>> and connected a cheap access point router (running standard firmware).  The
>> Commotion node’s LAN port is plugged into the WAN port of the Access Point.
>> In many cases this is best anyways -- since you either want good internal
>> coverage (dragging an ethernet cable inside) or you want to provide an
>> access point for many people outside (so you might want multiple access
>> points). Our wireless engineer is currently writing up documentation to
>> recommend that people dont use a router as both an access point and mesh.
>>
>> I agree with Adam that this is just an unfortunate limitation of wireless.
>>
>> Another option is a dual radio is something like this:
>> https://commotionwireless.net/blog/2014/11/05/do-it-yourself-antennas-for-community-networks/
>>
>> Best,
>> Ryan
>>
>>
>> _____________________________________
>> Senior Field Analyst, Open Technology Institute
>> New America Foundation
>> 1899 L St., N.W., Suite 400
>> Washington, DC 20036
>> +1 202 492 8841 (c)
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mar 3, 2015, at 9:02 AM, Josh Harle wrote:
>>
>> > Hi All,
>> >
>> > I've been installing 20 picostation M2HPs in a town to try to set up a
>> mesh network, partially based on the "Building Pop-up Mesh Networks"
>> article.
>> >
>> > I've found that when I have a handful of mesh nodes, if more than just
>> one of them has an access point interface enabled, the ETX goes from about
>> 1 to somewhere between 5 and 7!
>> >
>> > I've been talking to Adam Longwill about this, who has found similar
>> behaviour.  I don't understand how to mitigate this.  Isn't it expected
>> behaviour to have all nodes as APs too?  How do I get area coverage with
>> WiFi client access?
>> >
>> > It seems to impact performance so much to have more than one AP turned
>> on in the network that the only thing I can think of is to have one
>> Picostation for mesh, connected to one souly for AP on another channel.
>> >
>> > I would be hugely greatful for advice on this: I'm in a remote Aussie
>> town for just a couple of days trying to troubleshoot this.
>> >
>> > Kind Regards,
>> >
>> > Dr Josh Harle
>> > ____________________
>> > http://joshharle.com
>> > http://tacticalspace.org
>> > ph: +61 (0)491 155 985
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Commotion-discuss mailing list
>> > Commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>> > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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