I have very good news for CTwug as a whole, the opportunity is upon to obtain 4 new awesome links. Graphire feels because of the cost of this project that we should rather air it in the forums before spending just over R34000, for the sake of transparency. Feel free to air your opinions here.
Mimas has been long in the making of a highsite and if it wasn’t for the Prometheus hold up we probably could of had mimas up and running already. As luck would have it thepark http://wind.ctwug.za.net/?page=nodes&node=11975 became a CTwug highsite just in time, thanks to Bushwood who got permission from the building owner and he had the ctwug highsite agreement signed for us. We currently have permission for four links on thepark and 3 links on mimas. These two sites have great los to each other, myself, Dan and Bushwood did a scan from thepark and got very good result with a sxt.
There will be on spot left open for a future link on thepark. This file also showed what links we did consider before the Prometheus issue it also indicates how good Ironman site is doing. Backbone selection.xlsx.pdf (84.5 KB)
I will now breakdown the 4 projects in different post and say why they were chosen.
Ariel was chosen because the scan from thepark was promising, and ariel connects to Mercury and Mars both CTwug highsite with lots and lots of transit traffic between them, as could be seen from the backbone selection pdf. Because Ariel is a Ctwug highsite it should be 100% funded.Ariel Equipment List v1.0.pdf (59.1 KB)
KM-airwolf was chosen because of its potential and KM highsite is full at the moment. KM-airwolf currently has 5 links out and we are planning to make some mimo links. Because KM-airwolf is not a CTwug highsite they apply for 50% funding.KM-AW Equipment List v1.0.pdf (60.1 KB)
Mimas will be a new site build from scratch. Thanks to sparky and redeemer for helping out with rules and site visit it is really appreciated. You guys will see that Dan has added a gsm commander to the project, there is simple reasons for that. The site is not easy accessible and who wants to climb the stairs of a 40m tall building just to reboot.Mimas Equipment List v1.0.pdf (61.9 KB)
Another new site with some advantages that Mimas cant offer us at the moment. A sector will be pointed between Mowbray and Pinelands so we could some previous unconnected persons onto the wug. And here we have the opportunity of a future link to who knows where.The Park Equipment List v1.0.pdf (78.9 KB)
I forgot to mention why hyperlink and Ironman was selected, both of them already have their own kit just waiting to connect and both of them are very involved with their own highsite. This will of course mean minimum downtime when something goes wrong because they are easy contactable and always ready to assist in my experience.
This whole project will help with better ping time for sites that were many hops away and better ping times means better gaming.
Why are we buying dishes at dbg? I would suggest using the Mikrotik dishes which we can buy through Scoop (While earning rebate, this is assuming that this project will be 100% funded by the WUG?). Also means you won’t need the extra LMR’s, rocket adapters. May be a bit more expensive, but a much neater install.
Also, I would try and go for 8 Port TS’s instead of the 5 Port. They are about 2-3 times more reliable than the 5 Ports and a much more solid build.
About the GSM commander (Nice idea), but just a few questions:
Whose responsibility will it be to top it up?
Will it be rica’d under CTWUG’s name? If the sim gets stolen etc.
What make and model will it be?
P.S Lastly make sure the sector at ThePark points towards Metacom, I am craving some WUG at my work
Why are we buying dishes at dbg? I would suggest using the Mikrotik dishes which we can buy through Scoop (While earning rebate, this is assuming that this project will be 100% funded by the WUG?). Also means you won’t need the extra LMR’s, rocket adapters. May be a bit more expensive, but a much neater install.
Also, I would try and go for 8 Port TS’s instead of the 5 Port. They are about 2-3 times more reliable than the 5 Ports and a much more solid build.
About the GSM commander (Nice idea), but just a few questions:
Whose responsibility will it be to top it up?
Will it be rica’d under CTWUG’s name? If the sim gets stolen etc.
What make and model will it be?
P.S Lastly make sure the sector at ThePark points towards Metacom, I am craving some WUG at my work
Thanks for your valuable input. Everything is about saving money seeing that this project is gonna be more than R34k and mostly out of the bank account. Buying the mikrotik dishes sound like a better idea will be saving on all the adapter brackets and cables.
The 8 port toughswitches are so expensive though for two R4845 each were as the 5 ports for 3 R3505.5. I haven’t work with any of them enough to say how reliable they are, then again we have installed 3 of these on airwolf http://www.scoopdistribution.co.za/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=260gsp&search_in_description=1 they work out R2034 for 3, much cheaper than the competition. Also a few guys in Bothasig have installed these and are very happy with them. Anyone out there with opinion about this mikrotik product good or bad let us know could help us decide. For me its all about saving were we can.
GSM commander
How much can it be R5 a year know of a gsm commander that has never been topped up and still running.
Ill rica it,if we noticed that it was stolen then ill report it. The project has an enclosure listed and one of the requirements is that it must be locked.
Not sure Dan has the booklet with him but it is the cheapest one at acdc.
The plan is two put up another sector at a later stage one facing Pinelands and the other facing Mowbray.
Ogon the tough switches might still be worth while investing in. The ping watchdog feature is awesome. Say for some or other reason a link goes down or an RB freazes then the tough switch will automatically reboot that RB without any user intervention. But great to see these links
We have one at KM HS which was kindly donated by a member. We purchased a 99c prepaid MTN SIM card about 2years ago and R5 airtime. Since then we have never topped it up. It doesn’t need to send any smses so the airtime doesn’t get used. Initially we were worried that the SIM would be disconnected as it wasn’t using any airtime, but this never happened. The one at KM is set to do a 30second power cycle upon receiving a specific sms, there is also a list of phone numbers that it will listen to only. It is not necessary to implement the list if the SMS command that it is programmed to listen to is sufficiently complicated.
I’m not sure on the RICA, but the enclosure on Mimas has to be a lockable steel one.
This is the unit we were looking at getting. GC0101-OEM Micro GSM Commander
If there is a more suitable unit please point it out.
Cannot say anything bad on the RB260GSP’s that I have. I have been running 3 of them since shortly after Scoop got their first stock, have not had any time where they hung up or inaccessible in any way. They do also have a hardware Watchdog, but cannot comment on the good/bad of this feature as I never had any issues with access to them.
Hello there I have also have been using a gsm commander at home for better use than just resetting pwr for the past 7 years. They work well but are expensive. I bought 2 of these units http://www.aliexpress.com/item/GSM-Cell-Phone-Remote-Control-Power-Switch-w-Universal-Socket-AC-220V-3-Flat-Pin-Plug/733379375.html just a little more than R300 each and they work perfectly. Just need a adapter for flat pin but I see euro 2 pin version now. There is a app for ios and android that you can customise for it to make simple commands to send and receive from unit. Dan if you want to try it out I have a spare if you like cheers.
Waited a couple of months because of strike but it got here, postage is back to normal now normally receive within a month using the free postage option and customs is usually not bad if first or second international package, most times gets through for free but sometime R25 paper fees. No to ICASA because it was 2 items only so no problem there. If you struggle let me know I know a couple of the guys at customs at Epping depot.
I added code so it only excepts phone calls from numbers stored on simcard.
I found that even though it gets regular missed calls and had R20 airtime loaded onto it the 8ta simcard I had on it got kicked off the system and could not be recharged at all because i did not load airtime in 12 months
I just simply got a different simcard and reprogrammed it to send me an sms once every few days saying “i’m still up” and I now load R10 or R5 every 2 months just to be safe.
Just take not that you need to still load airtime ,depending on service provider chosen once every 6 or so months (can easily be done from internet banking).
KM-airwolf was chosen because of its potential and KM highsite is full at the moment. KM-airwolf currently has 5 links out and we are planning to make some mimo links. Because KM-airwolf is not a CTwug highsite they apply for 50% funding
We have decided to go with 3 x 5port tough switches to keep cost down as the 8 port is double the price and will have to buy two bigger enclosures for thepark
