Project Details 2013

This is meant to include both high level descriptions and enough detail to help with implementation.

Repeater Upgrade

The four main repeaters that we have been using for over ten years are very old and tired. They are not capable of the new features used in todays wifi world. New repeaters would give us these and other capabilities:

• A separate protected backbone to distribute the bandwidth on.
• Faster data rates like 802.11g in addition to the older 802.11b.
• VLAN trunking, This allows multiple protected networks on the same gear.
• Multiple network names on one repeater (Access Point).

The current network uses the same open wifi channel for both distributing the bandwidth and connecting to the users, which causes lots of congestion and poor performance. The last two features allow us to consolidate network gear into one system that serves different groups of users, which is a great cost savings. We can then take the leftover money and build in some redundancy to protect against equipment failures.

The basic components of a repeater are:

1. Backbone radio
2. Access Point for users to connect to
3. Bolted wooden bracket to attach them to a tree
4. Network, or power cable to the ground
5. Small power connector box at base of tree
   • Includes a 12 to 24 volt converter
6. Climbing rated pulley up in tree
   • 500 feet of nylon cord to pull up climbing rope
7. Deep Cycle batteries to rotate amongst the repeaters and charging station

The new repeaters would run on 24V which is more efficient than 12V, 48V would be even better but that grade of equipment is generally much more pricey. To get the power up the tree to the radios you can either run it over Ethernet cable which is called Power over Ethernet (PoE) or you can run simple DC power cord to the ground. The trade-off is that the power cord would be heavier than the network cable so there would be less loss and your batteries last longer, but you have to climb the tree to fix network problems with those radios.

Rigging

We currently have three repeaters up in trees. We would like to upgrade those and add three more to cover the Long Tom side of the eight. The three new trees will need these items to safely climb them: Pulleys tied with webbing protected by fire hose, and nylon cord to pull up your rope.

Locations of new repeaters

The main camp repeater covers the South end of the eight, but not as far as energy park, and this area may be a little hole after we are done. There are several good trees on the Long Tom side that we could put repeaters in. Booth 930 which is about 275 feet from the gate by the main camp six pack. Just South of the Junction at booth 814 which is about 803 feet from from that gate, etc... See the table below. 386 (Touch the Earth) not only covers upper river loop, but probably main stage as well. Here are some pictures of the proposed backbone coverage, and of the trees we might use: http://www.eugeneweb.com/gallery2/v/clif/OCF/OCF_wifi/

Booth	Distance From MC	Distance from last Booth
43	275
109	539	264
386	2202	485
596	1717	661
760	1056	122
814	803	533
930	270
EP	607	68
Junction	934	131
Long Tom Side
Main Stage Side
Tree Peter	1020	413

Table 1. Some booths and distances, later we can get the GPS coordinates.

Note that we can only pick three of these locations this year, and there will probably still be some holes. We can fill some in with the lessor repeaters we have, (I think there are about three) but they won't allow us to put multiple networks (net names) on one repeater so we will have to chose which network gets coverage in these weak areas.

Network Cable

Of course we'll need lots of network cable. We have two long runs that start at the Hub and go to main camp, and the Warebarn. These are longer than standard cat 5 cable can accommodate. The Warebarn run used to be over two phone lines using SDSL modems, but never performed very well. After about 10 years they finally died. These days a better technology to use is HCNA 3.1 Ethernet Over Coax, which is good up to 4000 feet. By cable TV standards these are very long runs, so it's better to use the high quality stuff. That probably means at least RG11.

Each of our two runs is close to 1000 feet. Ichabod is running a new cable between the Warebarn and Fair Central in the spring. The Hub is about half way between, off to the west 400 feet or so. So we can hitch a ride on his cable bundle If the spurs are run by the IT crew. Its 1033 feet from the Warebarn to the Snivel Smile corner close to the Hub. Then it's another 420 feet to the NOC in the hub. 420 Back to Snivel Smile, then 730 feet to Fair Central, and another 206 to the main camp networking shelf. If we are lucky we will have 160 feet left over from three one-thousand foot spools.

For the shorter runs we can use cat 5 or cat 6 whichever is cheaper. Though cat 6 is one wire size bigger (23 AWG) and may require special RJ45 connectors for that gauge. However this means our batteries will last longer. The shorter runs are up the trees (assuming we use Ethernet), around the Warebarn, and main camp.

We try to use heavy duty UV protected, gel filled cable (Icky-PIC) when possible.

Battery Connectors

We are about to make a big investment in new wifi gear that we need to protect. The old gear was a custom design that used a Diode to protect against someone hooking up the batteries at the base of a tree backwards. The new gear has no such protection and the cases are so small that you can't modify them, if you hook it up backwards then POOF you get to spend another $300. The standard way to handle this is to use polarized connectors that only go together one way.

We could also streamline our use of 12V batteries if we standardized on a connector. Right now we have all sorts of incompatibilities, like different battery posts different or missing battery clips, cigarette lighter style here, Molex there, etc... One solution would be to use Anderson powerpole connectors, they seem to be pretty popular. See: http://www.powerwerx.com/anderson-powerpoles/

There are two ways to assemble them, most people do it like this: http://www.powerwerx.com/assembly.asp

-- ClifCox - 01 Nov 2010

-- ClifCox - 20 Jan 2013