SWAN - the Spancilhill Wireless Area Network

Dave (DW) and David T. have created a new website on which they outline the current status of our project here in Spancilhill. Since DW has done the bulk of the behind-the-scene work, by putting a lot of effort into it, and also because of legal implications with the DSL line(s), the new network needs to be safe and secure. So please read that website carefully and use it to get further status updates and information.

The most important message for us is: "We are now in the process of connecting people. A short time ago, three houses were connected." (That was the test I mentioned in my previous post.) "Installations will be carried out in a "cluster" fashion, beginning on Monday 13th (all being well) The first and second cluster to be installed are being contacted over the weekend."

The installation will be an antenna similar to that one pictured in the previous post. It will be mounted according to the individual requirements of the location (direct line of sight or relayed via neighbor etc.), i.e. either on the wall or on the roof. From there, a network cable (Ethernet, RJ45 plug) will be run into the house, but it is up to each individual party to connect that, either to a router/switch or directly to your computer.

A router or a switch would be recommendable if you want to connect more than one computer in your house to the WAN. 

Understandably, DW cannot spend endless time to connect you, so if your computer or router is not located in a convenient proximity of the antenna, you have to arrange that for yourself: "Although you will get help connecting to the network, you cannot expect unpaid people to go crawling through your loft and similar operations. Insurance and safety have to be considered. Please arrange for any extra work like this to be done separately or make sure your computer is sited reasonably close to where the cable will enter the house."

The antenna also needs a power supply (the power will be provided over the same network cable using a feature called Power-Over-Ethernet), but it has a very, very low consumption, less than your TV on standby! For safety reasons, it has to remain powered on all the time.

Finally, he remarks: "The administrators" (Bryan and DW) "of the network are only responsible for providing a connection as far as the antenna on your house. If the antenna is receiving a good connection and you are having problems with your computer, you may have to call in a professional. This can be arranged on your behalf if necessary."

If anybody needs any help in this regard (i.e. computer support) or with connecting more than one computer, I’m more then willing to help out. This would be my little contribution to the local community.

Please use the "Comments" link under this post freely for any inquiries, questions or further comments.

(Updated 06-Aug-07) 

I drove by this house today and saw this:

So it starts rolling now. David T.’s house is being connected for initial tests etc., before the other client kits gets installed, as announced in an earlier post. Later he confirmed to me that he is actually online now and will update us further during this week.

(Taken from his comments to former posts)

"Keep up the good work. You now know how hard it is to pull a project like this together. You will get there as a team. I wish you the best of luck in the short time you have to complete this before the long winter nights. Keep at it. It’s worth it in the end."

"We also notice you have ignored us on the irishwan website. We would like to know how you are doing etc. Remember there are lots of us here to help when you need some tech support. You don’t need to keep banging on one door all the time. Keep in touch."

"We at irishwan would love to keep updated with progress too. Our sole ethos is community. Keep up the spirit…"

Thanks for your encouragement, Donie!

On Another Note: Posts authored by David T. are actually just literal renditions of his answers to my requests for an update. They are all marked with [dt] now to make this more transparent.

(taken from his comment to the previous post, to make it more outstanding)

Dave has made his first of 2 scheduled visits back to the transmitter site to make several alterations to the site there. He wants to remind people that the land there is private, and people should ask the landowner when going up there.

He reports that initial signal tests from as far away as 10 miles are very good, and a permanent link to the WAN has been achieved through Barefield(!), replacing the ailing North-Clare link. Also, initial speed-tests are incredibly fast via that link now. He is installing a second backup node in Ennis over this weekend (weather permitting) and as soon as that is commissioned, he will make his second scheduled visit onto the hill and finalise the installation there. After that, we should be good to go with the installations.

He wants to thank all for their patience. "A project like this takes an incredible amount of time and resources to put together, but the time for celebration is nearly upon us now."

[dt] Most of the gear has arrived. Dave (DW) has to reprogram each board (thirty plus) to allow for dhcp routing and then ’soak test’ to ensure fault-free circuitry. The bracketry has been sourced and is in storage.

Dave still has to properly align the antennae and then test: he’ll probably do David T.’s house first and run the tests before anyone else is connected. We really want to avoid anyone having any downtime, hence the testing and tweaking first before general connection. All this takes time.

Once we feel everything is working as it should, people will get their gear.

[dt] After evaluating all houses taking part in this phase of the project, the relevant stuff was ordered, but unfortunately, one or two things (e.g. Pigtails) are out of stock and probably won’t arrive until around the 10th or 11th July.

U.FL/ MHF to N Female Bulkhead 25cm UFL2NFB2
U.FL / MHF to Right Angle SMA Male 15cm (Rootenna) UFL2RASMA1
2.4Ghz 15dBi Panel Antenna with Radio Pouch R2T24W-15
MikroTik Routerboard 133c (Level 3) RB133c
Passive PoE Injector EZPOEPA0
Wistron Neweb CM9 Atheros 802.11a/b/g CM9
MikroTik Routerboard 133 (Level 4) RB133
Passive PoE Injector and 18v 0.8A Desktop Power Supply BUNDLE 18vPoEb

Progress Update

After our second meeting in Duggans Pub, we decided to go ahead with the final stage of ordering and installing the client kits. Within two weeks, everybody who wants to get connected will have to make a contribution towards the investment and at the same time, a survey on all those houses will be done to find out exactly which equipment is needed, be it for a direct connection or a relay. In any case, every contribution will be the same. After these two weeks, no further connections will be made for probably 6 month. After that, new plans and arrangements will be necessary for newcomers, since the system might already be at its full capacity.

Comments missing

Today, the administrator of this blog discovered that there were a few comments to earlier posts waiting for approval. He wants to apologize for not doing this earlier - he simply wasn’t aware that they had to be approved. On most blogs, they appear automatically without administrator intervention. Please review the earlier posts again and check the comments now.

Contributions

We also want to encourage local people, who are having same interest in this project to participate in this blog and thereby sharing the burden of keeping not only the local community informed on the progress, but also other, similar projects around the country and beyond. 

Last night we met in Dave’s kitchen to put together two client kits and two major node kits for the Ennis to Spancilhill DSL connection. As Dave and Zed promised, it’s really easy to put the client kit together if you follow a few, but very, very important rules.

This "client kit", which will be installed in every participating house (apart from some special cases), consists of the following:

A "Routerboard", the central unit to maintain the link between the wireless LAN and the computer(s) in your house. It has an Ethernet port to connect with your house network and an extension slot to take on the following:

A "radio card" (CM9), which will be attached onto the routerboard and linked with the antenna via the next item:

A "pigtail",  a very sensitive piece of cable to connect the radio card with the following:

A "rootenna", which is a weatherproof case with a built-in antenna, ready to integrate the routerboard with the radiocard, it will be mounted on a pole somewhere on your house when finished.

To power this up, we can use a feature called "Power over Ethernet" (PoE), which saves us to run an extra power supply cable up on your roof. For this we need A "PoE injector", which "inserts" 48V DC onto the Ethernet cable which will be connected to the routerboard and A simple power supply

After the assembling, we tested the kits successfully and enjoyed the wonderful buffet.

Brian also assembled one of the long range grid antennas, which will be put on the pole in Spancilhill and on the roof in Bryan’s place in Ennis.

Dave will continue to test the major nodes (routerboard 500) and at some stage we will put all the gear into place and do live tests. 

[dt,mk] Yesterday, a few brave men went out into the wild east of Clare to fight against …. sorry no, that’s another story. But actually, as you can see in this photoalbum, we have linked the wlan pole on the Spancilhill to a local power source.

We, that’s of course our organisator and "forward-pusher" David Taylor. There’s Brian Dawson who is an electrician. We put the builder’s string through the hydrodare. Brian organised the armoured cable. Dave Wroe kindly found the cheapest source of hydrodare and even went to collect it. Neil Doherty helped with the digging and putting down the cement for the pole site and helped with laying the cables. Pat McMahon owns the land where the pole is and he’s a great help transporting stuff and mixing concrete etc. The land under which the cable sits belongs to Michael Duggan and we’re tapping into his power source. His brother Tony and wife Maureen are generous with the tea and cake and gave easy access to the land. Christy McNamara helped with pipe connections and digging. Finally, Ross Marlborough was the young fella driving the mini-digger. A good worker. Oh, and Matthias, who only arrived after 5 to see whether everything was done ok (just kidding, he had to work during the day and helped cleaning the "building site" afterwards).

[dt,mk] Work on the node on Spancilhill is progressing smoothly. Some gear has arrived. By the time all the gear is here, the concrete around the first pole in the ground should be set. It has u-bolts ready for the antenna pole which, combined with adjustable guys on the antenna pole, will make the beast be rock solid but still easy to maintain.

David T, Brian D and Matthias dug out the hole. With the help of Noel, DW from IrishWAN and Pat McM the concrete was prepared and the base support for the pole fixed into the ground. Look here and here for more pictures. Thanks to Pat McM to provide not only the land, but also a "motorized mule" to get the gear and material up that steep Spancilhill! Even walking without "cargo" was a huge exercise for some of us couch potatoes! But it was an excellent get-together on a beautiful spring evening with brilliant 360 degrees sights over Clare!

With regards to further high sites acting as nodes, Sweep Hill is dropped as a second node. There are far too few houses visible from there to make it viable.

Our second DSL-source at Ballymaley may just be able to see Spancilhill from his house in Clooney (Kilgobban) with a tall pole or maybe with a pole on his boundary. Until Spancilhill goes up, it’s hard to tell. However, his neighbour is in line of sight so that’s another possibility which needs to be investigated.

In a nutshell, my view is that Clooney houses could possibly be served by a node in Kilgobban, having been relayed via Spancilhill. It would be good to do this if viable. Even then, some houses (and probably the school) are very difficult. Houses such as Willhelm’s need to look at putting up a very tall pole if a second node is established in Clooney.

A prime location for a node to connect to the greater WAN has been investigated. It has the excellent advantages of seeing:
(a) our prime source of dsl in the Gort road industrial estate
(b) our prime source of dsl’s home place
(c) Spancilhill
(d) Crusheen and our greater wan link
(e) the landowner’s house
(f) most likely Ballymaley; the sun was low when I went up there
No source of power there as yet but the ideas being developed in Spancilhill will help. I’m confident that this node can be brought into play fairly easily once Spancilhill is up and running.

We’re working on the possibility of Spancilhill node being powered over ethernet or alternatively, with a medium voltage cable and ethernet separately. It’s just within the bounds of distance limits. We’ll probably need a mini digger if anyone wants to donate time/fuel.