At 7/21/2010 12:37 PM, Scott Reed wrote:
If you have, join the Yahoo RM group. Lots of help there. Plus
links to at least 2 tutorials.
I've been there, and it helps. But it is not a substitute for a good
collection of documentation. There's useful stuff on Roger's web
site too, but it isn't always easy to figure out certain things, like
when to use which mode to use for a network (spot, accidental,
broadcast...) and what settings make the most sense. I use MapInfo a
lot and it has thick manuals, the unabridged one being PDF
only. Yes, it's expensive commercial software. I'm spoiled. ;-) I
suppose a wiki might be a way for the community to collect its thoughts.
I did see some interesting discussions on the Yahoo group about the
nodes, and about the land cover. I roughly doubled the forest loss
numbers, from Roger's default. This still might not be adequate,
though, since it makes it seem *possible* to blast 5.8 GHz through
the woods. Is 180 a good setting for most forests?
Roger does this for a living and his employer sells a very nice
commercial package. They have been nice enough to allow him to to
RM for free, so we get a super program at no cost. This also means
that Open Source is out, as I am sure the source is too similar to
their commercial package. If you want the pay version, I am sure an
e-mail to him would get you company contact information.
What is the commercial product? He certainly hides any mention of
it. If it's reasonable, I might look. I remember seeing an add-on
for MapInfo, though. The price was roughly similar to the price of
the local calling area database license. My car cost less, new.
SPLAT looks to be a somewhat similar open source program, but much
more limited in scope and not nearly as well updated. This is
complicated stuff, I know. About 3/4 of the confusion might be solved
by having a "mouse-over help" function, where you could right-click
on a box and pop up a tutorial on what the values mean and how to set
them. That could be an interesting volunteer project. Of course
Roger's primary market is 2 meter repeaters, so the parameters we use
in the WISP bands are a bit different...
...The only time I would see a need for antenna patterns is if you
have a fixed-base AP and mobile CPE. If both are fixed-base, I am
not sure what the patterns will gain you. I do the same thing; I
have a 5.8 network, a 2.4 network and a 900 network. Most of my
POPs are setup with 3 120* sectors, so all POPs are setup with an
omni of the same gain as the sector antenna. In my experience so
far, the results are fairly accurate when there is clear
line-of-sight. If there are a significant number of trees in the
path, it obviously is not so good. I suppose if you have 2 90*
sectors trying to cover 360* you would want patterns to find the
nulls and edges, but if you have antennas for full coverage, the
pattern probably is not so important. For point to point links,
antenna pattern does not matter , assuming you are planning to aim
the antennas directly at each other as that is the assumption RM makes.
Not all of the sectors need full-circle coverage, so I was thinking
about using the model to see how it looked with partial coverage on
some poles. This would save radios and antennas... In fact, with
three sector radios and two backhaul radios (not to mention needing
three backhaul radio "degrees" at mesh junctions), that exceeds the
four-slot maximum of any one Routerboard, right? So do you often put
back-to-back radios in one box?
I think the only way to do sectors in RM is to treat them as separate
radios, So if Unit 10 was three sectors, it might end up as say
Units 10, 91, and 92, in the access network, right?
The Yahoo group has also had discussions about exports and
imports. There are several things you can do. Again, check out the tutorials.
I would have to disagree about the need for many
improvements. Granted, I have been using it for over 5 years, but I
find everything to be where expected and do what it should. Roger
is open to suggestion, though. Let him know what you would like to see.
I don't want to disparage Roger and his great work; it's just little
things. I just hate drop-downs, which RM's UI makes me use too often,
especially for selecting radios. But also the fact that adding a
radio requires going to both the unit properties and then the network
properties is counter-intuitive and a bit clumsy. These sorts of
things aren't show-stoppers, just places where it helps reduce one's
sanity just a bit more. Which can be in short supply...
Fred Goldstein wrote:
At 7/21/2010 11:41 AM, MarlonS wrote:
Radio Mobile hates everyone that doesn't use it every day.
It's a great tool, but boy is it frustrating! Roger has done a
wonderful thing by putting this out there for free and improving it
as he has. But there are so many things that could be done to
improve it, especially the clumsy user interface. If it were an
open source project, then more people could contribute to the
effort. If he had a premium payware version, then he'd have
incentive to at least prettify the pay version.
Documentation wouldn't hurt either...
My current project has set up three "networks" using the same batch
of nodes. One is 5.8 GHz backhaul. One is 900 MHz backhaul, for
heavy-forest paths. One is 5.8 GHz access. When it does the "show
networks", it doesn't seem to find the best path, but it's not
terribly predictable as to which common "network" it's using. So I
end up having to do path-by-path comparisons anyway.
My next chore is to add antenna patterns. I think this means
taking each node and turning it into two or three nodes, if it has
two or three separate sectors. I can "save network" as a CSV, but
that seems to only save the node locations. Copying network
parameters between projects seems impossible. :=(
grin
marlon
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:robert.w...@just-micro.com>Robert West
To: <mailto:wireless@wispa.org>WISPA General List
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 7:38 PM
Subject: [WISPA] Ping --- Radio Mobile Hates Me.
Ping.
(Had to)
Bob-
Still fighting the animal that is Radio Mobile.
--
Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com
ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/
+1 617 795 2701
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