[Durham] riverside network for regatta (was Re: Regatta Equipment Officer)

[Richard Mortimer]

Hi Andy,

On 20/01/2016 15:50, Andrew Glass wrote:
> Hey guys
> 
> What are you planning on running for the long range wifi network? Would you
> like zero handoff for moving from ap to ap?

Basically open to ideas.

My initial plan was to use Mesh Potatos from the Village Telco project
to provide a mesh network. That stalled/fell flat because the MP 2
devices have never really materialised in an outdoor friendly enclosure.

http://villagetelco.org/

Last year we used pairs of Ubiquiti NanoStation Loco M2 devices to build
a routed network. There is one permanently mounted on the city end of
the boathouse that points towards the regatta start. Then we mount
another on the regatta start platform to provide a link to there. That
gives a good 55Mbps connection into the boathouse broadband connection
(which sadly doesn't run at 55mbps!).

We used a combination of wired and a wireless AP to provide networking
to the regatta control portacabins at the start.

>From that the plan is to use another pair of the M2s to provide a
similar link from the start platform (hangs out onto the river) down to
the commentary box on Bath's Bridge giving a good line of sight. That
links into the wired network at the start and routes up to the boathouse
for internet access. Then we use an omni-directional AP to provide a
wifi network to the commentary box and finish box about 50 metres away.
We've got all the hardware to do that but I ran out of time last year to
test and install that.

I'm reasonably confident that the baths bridge bit will work but that
said until it is battle tested you never know!

Zero handoff would be a nice to have but it isn't absolutely necessary
because you do have to trek a few hundred metres from one location to
the other. If someone (you?) wants to try to configure it then I can
bring the kit down and give it a whirl.

Notes. All the routers have been "upgraded" to OpenWRT from the
manufacturers firmware (which is also OpenWRT based). I (hope) I have a
git archive containing all of the configuration settings for each router
so restoring them to the current configuration is quite easy.

Regards

Richard