Country Codes on AWD 5GHz Radio

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T Gillett

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Sep 13, 2017, 12:54:49 AM9/13/17
to Gavin Huggins, village-telco-dev
Hi Gavin

The issue is that when the GB (or any other) country code is selected, only certain channel and power combinations are permitted. This is enforced in the OpenWrt software.

The default channel in the AWD firmware is 157, and when I tested, it seems that this channel will not operate when the Country Code is set to GB. It works fine when the country code is blank or set to AU in my test.

By comparison, the lower numbered 5GHz channels (42 etc) will operate OK at but may require lower power settings.

When the TxPower setting is left blank, the radio will transmit at the maximum permissible power level for the selected channel and region settings.

However the reported power for the 5GHz Ralink radio is not an accurate measure of the actual power. The maximum power setting (on the high 5GHz channels) is 30, and this corresponds to around 23dBm power into a 50 Ohm load at the antenna connector.

If an invalid set of parameters is set, the Ralink radio generally will not transmit at all (ie it does not use default settings as some other radios do).

To check the operation of the radios, run the "iw dev" command and compare the output to that when the radio is running in the default SECN mode.
Note that iff the output of the command is not complete (ie all the lines present) then the radio is not actually working.

The 'ticking' sound in the AWD is caused by the DC-DC converter when the 5GHz radio emits a burst of signal when set to high power. It will correspond to the amount of data being transmitted.

Note that the power consumption can be quite high at high power settings and high data rates and so the radio chip must have an effective heatsink and the power supply must be able to deliver sufficient current (eg 800mA at 12V typically).

Regards
Terry

On Wed, Sep 13, 2017 at 7:30 AM, Gavin Huggins <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Terry

Changed both radios to GB and max power on both and on the status page see no nodes on any of the three units status pages.

One other thing since loading  that firmware there is a clicking and clacking sound coming from the one node I have open on my desk (other two outside) it increases in frequently with Lan network activity .


Gavin


Gavin

On 12 Sep 2017 9:49 p.m., "T Gillett" <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Gavin

Just to clarify, the only thing that you have changed is the Country Code and the Tx Power on the Secondary radio.
  Is that correct?

The Country Code is GB.
What is the TxPower setting?

What do you see on the Status page in the Node Signal Strength box?

Terry.


On 13/09/2017 1:14 AM, "Gavin Huggins" <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Terry

I have found an issue which i have tested a few times, i have tested three AWD unitd all flashed with that firmware you sent and all work ok and in the status you can see all three talking to each other in the mesh but when you start doing your own configuring of the settings all is fine but when you change the radio power levels and the region in my case GB it seems to break the mesh with now no nodes in the status and they dont connect to each other ?

Reflashing them all fixes this , any idea.

gavin

On 6 September 2017 at 12:57, T Gillett <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Gavin

I don't quite understand what you are trying to achieve with using 2.4 and 5GHz radios concurrently on the mesh.

Can you explain in a bit more detail please?

Regards
Terry

On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 5:13 PM, Gavin Huggins <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Terry

So if you decide to set the dual radio as pim-AP and Sec-Mesh then you can only use 5ghz radios in the mesh and the only way to mix 2.4 and 5ghz radios is to set the dual radio setting to prim&sec for AP & Mesh.



Gavin


On 4 Sep 2017 10:21 p.m., "T Gillett" <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:

Not sure I quite understand the question but all nodes in a mesh have to be on the same wifi channel.

So you can't mesh a 2.4 GHz device with 5GHz devices.

Have I missed the point?


On 04/09/2017 7:17 PM, "Gavin Huggins" <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks Terry

A bit over my head as not the best software guru as hardware is my strong point but hey i will try see if i can figure it out.

Are you able to run 2.4ghz AP as part of the 5ghz mesh, my nodes are all set to have Prm - AP and Sec - mesh on 5ghz and would like to add a 2.4ghz as a mesh hop only like the TP703n with secn4 on it.

gavin

On 3 September 2017 at 22:17, T Gillett <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Gavin

Basically you need to configure an adhoc wifi interface in /etc/config/wireless and with the SSID and BSSID set to match the mesh.

Have a look at the file on a tunning SECN device for comparison.

Then you add that interface to batman-adv with "batctl if add ..."

Then you can run "batctl  o" to check.

Terry


On 04/09/2017 2:03 AM, "Gavin Huggins" <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Terry

Can you assist me, i am trying to setup a 5ghz Ap running lede to be a mesh range extender only so if i need to hop over a dead spot where no  client access is required only to carry the mesh to a remote MP2.

The AP is a TP Link CPE510 and a TP 703n with Lede installed and batman, i just dont know what network/wireless/batman config files to populate with what settings to be part of the secn vt-mesh

Thanks

On 30 August 2017 at 23:26, T Gillett <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Gavin

In theory yes.
In practice you will be challenged by the size of the flash memory available in the device.
With 4MB flash it is problematic to add very many packages to the base LEDE build.

To test, you can load up a LEDE release firmware from the downloads page and check whether there is sufficient flash memory to allow installation of batmav-adv and batctl packages.

If so then you can configure batman-adv to mesh with SECN by setting the mesh SSID and BSSID, and set up adhoc wifi interface to use for the mesh.

An alternative may be to use basic 802.11s mesh networking which means you don't need batman packages.

For a simple mesh it may well do the job for you.

Regards
Terry

On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 11:56 PM, Gavin Huggins <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Terry
Is it possible to use a TP link 703n with lede installed as a mesh extender only and if so how.

Is it possible to add a LEDE TP-Link CPE510  2.4/5ghz wifi AP simply as a 5ghz extender to expand the mesh backbone on the 5ghz radio and a bonus if it could be a 2.4 AP for clients as well.

Gavin

On 30 August 2017 at 08:01, Gavin Huggins <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Terry

It was simple the key was Luci once installed it was a breeze to add functionality maybe it's the way forward,  have a Luci enabled firmware and add village telco via a Luci scripts say mesh, fxs, sip and wan or so you could load the Telco script and tick boxes on options to load this would make it easier to use other hardware to run Telco and boost Telco's use as I love it.

Gavin

On 29 Aug 2017 10:28 p.m., "T Gillett" <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:

Excellent.
Did you get remote access working ok?
When you get DDNS sorted out would you make a post to share the set up pls?
T


On 30/08/2017 7:14 AM, "Gavin Huggins" <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
All sorted running graet

Gavin

On 29 Aug 2017 9:18 p.m., "T Gillett" <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:

It's essentially Lua CGI scripts so it runs when you request the URL.

There will be a collision between index.html for the two interfaces so you will need to deal with that. Probably rename the SECN one before loading LuCI.


On 30/08/2017 12:37 AM, "Gavin Huggins" <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Terry

Thanks got it now, how would you start luci

On 29 August 2017 at 14:49, T Gillett <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:
Edit  the file:   /etc/opkg/distfeeds.conf   

to add the LuCI repo:   https://downloads.openwrt.org/chaos_calmer/15.05.1/ar71xx/generic/packages/luci/

Then when you run opkg update it should get the list of LuCI packages, and then you can install those that you need.

Note that this is just 'general advice' as I am on the road and not in a position to actually test this...

On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 10:59 PM, Gavin Huggins <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry but how and what do i need to add

Gavin

On 29 August 2017 at 12:40, T Gillett <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:
It's not getting the LuCI repo, because LuCI was not included in the original build.

You could add the LuCi repo to /etc/opkg/distfeeds.conf




On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 9:15 PM, Gavin Huggins <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:

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           O        / \   / \         0
          / \      /   \ /   \       / \
     O---O   O----O     O     O-----O   O---O
          \ /      \   / \   /       \ /
           O        \ /   \ /         O
                     O-----O
  _______                     ________        __
 |       |.-----.-----.-----.|  |  |  |.----.|  |_
 |   -   ||  _  |  -__|     ||  |  |  ||   _||   _|
 |_______||   __|_____|__|__||________||__|  |____|
          |__| W I R E L E S S   F R E E D O M


DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION='OpenWrt Chaos Calmer 15.05.1' DISTRIB_REVISION='r49389' Dra                                              gino

Village Telco - Small Enterprise Campus Network

Version:     SECN-4-MP02-AWD-RC9c MP02FXS AWD
Build date:  2017-08-22-12:36
GitHub:      vt-firmware SECN3/4-160-gc674b8ed44

root@MP2-21:~# opkg update
Downloading http://downloads.openwrt.org/chaos_calmer/15.05.1/ar71xx/generic/pac                                              kages/base/Packages.gz.
Updated list of available packages in /var/opkg-lists/chaos_calmer_base.
Downloading http://downloads.openwrt.org/chaos_calmer/15.05.1/ar71xx/generic/pac                                              kages/telephony/Packages.gz.
Updated list of available packages in /var/opkg-lists/chaos_calmer_telephony.
Downloading http://downloads.openwrt.org/chaos_calmer/15.05.1/ar71xx/generic/pac                                              kages/packages/Packages.gz.
Updated list of available packages in /var/opkg-lists/chaos_calmer_packages.
Downloading http://downloads.openwrt.org/chaos_calmer/15.05.1/ar71xx/generic/pac                                              kages/fxs/Packages.gz.
Downloading http://downloads.openwrt.org/chaos_calmer/15.05.1/ar71xx/generic/pac                                              kages/routing/Packages.gz.
Updated list of available packages in /var/opkg-lists/chaos_calmer_routing.
Collected errors:
 * opkg_download: Failed to download http://downloads.openwrt.org/chaos_calmer/1                                              5.05.1/ar71xx/generic/packages/fxs/Packages.gz, wget returned 8.
root@MP2-21:~# root@MP2-21:~# opkg update
-ash: root@MP2-21:~#: not found
               kages/base/Packages.gz.
-ash: Downloading: not found
root@MP2-21:~# Updated list of available packages in /var/opkg-lists/chaos_calmer_base.
-ash: Updated: not found
               kages/telephony/Packages.gz.
-ash: Downloading: not found
root@MP2-21:~# Updated list of available packages in /var/opkg-lists/chaos_calmer_telephony.
-ash: Updated: not found
               kages/packages/Packages.gz.
-ash: Downloading: not found
root@MP2-21:~# Updated list of available packages in /var/opkg-lists/chaos_calmer_packages.
-ash: Updated: not found
               kages/fxs/Packages.gz.
-ash: Downloading: not found
               kages/routing/Packages.gz.
-ash: Downloading: not found
root@MP2-21:~# Updated list of available packages in /var/opkg-lists/chaos_calmer_routing.
-ash: Updated: not found
root@MP2-21:~# Collected errors:
-ash: Collected: not found
root@MP2-21:~#  * opkg_download: Failed to download http://downloads.openwrt.org/chaos_calmer/1
               5.05.1/ar71xx/generic/packages/fxs/Packages.gz, wget returned 8.
-ash: *: not found


and this when trying to install luci


root@MP2-21:~# opkg install luci
Unknown package 'luci'.
Collected errors:
 * opkg_install_cmd: Cannot install package luci.
root@MP2-21:


Any ideas


Gavin



On 29 August 2017 at 12:04, T Gillett <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:
Gavin
Some comments in line
Regards
Terry

On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 8:50 PM, Gavin Huggins <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Terry

Thanks for that, i cant seem to add luci to that latest build you sent as it says no packages and errors.

Do you mean that opkg would not download packages?
What repo is it trying to get to?

 
When trying to remote to the unit do i need a port number, as ticked the box saved and rebooted and tried the IP displayed by the wan settings in green and no access

Tick the box and restart.
Then try to access via the assigned IP address using SSH. The forwarded port is 2222.
See SECN 4 User Guide pp26 for details (http://wiki.villagetelco.org/SECN_4_User_Guide) but syntax is:
    $ ssh -p 2222 <IP Address>

Similarly for HTTPS.

 

i think the ESP8266 is the route so can add a relay or two  to switch the camera off and on and maybe measure the voltage of the battery to determine if its charging and maybe adding some weatherston sensors ie temp, wind and rain and maybe a light meter. Is it possible to add a webpage to display these extra values or to the existing config page.

The ESP8266 looks very promising. I have done some work with them previously on a project.
One nice thing is that you can have several modules as wifi clients of the MP02.
I plan to add a separate tab for IoT data display next to the Status tab.


Gavin



On 28 August 2017 at 23:23, T Gillett <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Gavin

A few thoughts...

1. DDNS
DDNS set up is not directly supported in SECN GUI at this time
It requires the ddns-scripts package which you can install with opkg.

2. Unfortunately there is no analogue IO capability provided on the AR9331 chipset, so you have to add something else like an Arduino or ESP8286 module as an IoT device.
Or you could use an I2C interface to a suitable sensor if you aren't using the FXS module and can free up the GPIOs.

There are a few possibilities for connecting an Arduino.
You could set up the Arduino as a network/wifi enabled device and just access it via IP.
Another possibility is to connect say a UNO board to the USB port on the MP02 and communicate via USB serial eg to gather sensor data and plug it in to a web page like the current Status page.

The ESP8286 also looks like a simple way to do this as a networked wifi client.

3. You can install and run LuCI in parallel with the SECN GUI. It will just appear as a different page in the web server.
You do need to be aware that the SECN interface may clobber some settings that you change either from LuCI or from command line - it assumes it has complete ownership of the config files. Nonetheless there is plenty that you can edit quite safely.

4. Remote access is supported in the SECN GUI via SSH and HTTPS.
If you look at the WAN tab you will see a checkbox to enable access.
You can use both the DHCP IP address assigned by your ISP, or the private static address set in the GUI - 10.0.0.20 by default.
The assigned IP address will be displayed in the WAN tab, so if it is static then you can use that directly even without DDNS.

5. See above

6. The USB modems are generally pretty power hungry, but if you shut down the WAN interface the standby power is much less.
So you could install cron and just set up a script to enable the WAN interface at certain times of the day. The MP02 will get the time of day automatically via NTP as soon as it is connected to the Internet, and will keep time well enough on its own when not connected for this sort of thing.



On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 8:34 PM, Gavin Huggins <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Terry

Camera works fine, just use a IP camera on the wan port set as a lan port with IP in the range and can access it.
  1. Do you have a procedure to add ddns support via console.
  2. Is there a way to monitor the battery power from the solar or the power incoming either on poe or barrel plug so one can see if the panels are charging the batteries remotly.
  3. Is it possible to have Luci installed and accessed via say 10.130.1.2?/luci to add other features needed for other applications but with Secn still doing the mesh and AP functions via the 10.130.1.2? or /secn.
  4. If i want to remote access the unit with the 3/4g modem with ddns installed this will be possible as my sim cards have "un natted" IP addresses or how would i install open vpn via console, this why i need luci baby.
  5. I would also like to monitor and control remote things via a wifi iot relay device thus the remote access vis vpn would be great.
  6. Finally is there a way to conserve power by say having a app which lets you power things down and only awake when needed or on a timer, so you could power down or put to sleep the modem .

Thanks






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T Gillett

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Sep 13, 2017, 8:02:58 PM9/13/17
to Gavin Huggins, village-telco-dev
Hi Gavin

The "battery" device is possibly a single cell LiPo battery with a step up inverter to give 12V output, and so you may find that the 20000mAH rating refers to the capacity of the LiPo battery itself, and so at 12V the capacity is about possibly only one quarter ie 5000mAh.

You may also have to test whether the device is capable of charging the internal battery from the solar panel at the same time as supplying the output load. Many simple devices can't do both simultaneously.

Your 3G/4G modem will also typically draw a considerable amount of power, possibly more than the AWD itself.

The 25W solar panel will probablly provide 1Amp charge current for six or eight hours per day in a sunny climate, so that means that your total power budget is a total of 6 - 8 AH per day, less some factor for charge/discharge efficiency of the battery.

This means that the current drain for the entire system could not exceed ~250mA just to run for one day. So I think you will need quite a bit more power to run the system.

Regarding networking with the USB 3G/4G modem, I would suggest that it is configured as the WAN port on one of the AWD devices, and this AWD device IP address is configured as the Gateway address for other devices on the network that require internet access.

SECN provides port forwarding for SSH and HTTPS access through the WAN firewall on the WAN page.

Access to other devices like the IP cameras will require either additional port forwarding configuration, or use of the tunnelling protocols that may of these devices have built-in.

The AWD is acting just as a simple LAN/WAN router, the only difference is that the LAN network is extended via the Layer 2 mesh network.

Regards
Terry


On Wed, Sep 13, 2017 at 10:49 PM, Gavin Huggins <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Terry

Yes 12v but I don't have faith in these prepacked packs from China eBay.co.uk item 222449352697 as not sure on cell quality or if it is 20ah
​ but lets say they are ok​

​The solar controller will draw a bit ebay 152669496509 and the camera ebay 131717137612 and all on a 25w 12v panel. They will be located in central Portugal 40°26'25.1"N 7°55'01.6"W
area so gets a lot of sun.

What would be the best way to connect to the units via the the modem which has a sim card in which gives an un natted ip address, just dont know what i need to set on the main unit to allow access onto the local network so i can monitor each unit or the cameras remotely.  



Gavin

On 13 Sep 2017 10:01 a.m., "T Gillett" <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Gavin

It sounds like you are getting only six hrs max out of the 20ah battery which is remarkably short and implies a 3Amp load.

It does not make sense. The AWD draws about 0.3Amp at idle.

Best to measure the actual current drain of the various components with a meter to see what is really going on.

Is the LiPo battery 12Volt (nominally)?

Terry


On 13/09/2017 5:02 PM, "Gavin Huggins" <gavh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Terry

So best would be to not fill anything in and leave it at the default settings when flashed.

At worst don't touch the country setting.
Is there a way to reduce the power consumption when running on solar at say night time, so at certain times reduce the power levels or going into a sleep mode maybe some form of wol .

My setup is remote with AWD's runny the 9c firmware with a 20ah lipo battery and solar controller and 25w panel and a small CCTV camera on the wan port set to Lan port with one box the say main one with a 4g usb modem and 64gb SD card for content. At present it will run during sunshine and until around 9pm before running out of juice. Yes I know bigger battery and panel will help but then it gets big and cumbersome. It would be preferred to reduce consumption by powering down services in the dark/evening.
As the camera is the big consumer and not powered through the AWD one could possibly use one of those WiFi relays esp type device to remotely switch the relay to power cycle the camera when needed but how to set this up and hopefully add configuration and viewing on the secn webpage would be fantastic can you help with any of these issues.

Gavin
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