Doodle Labs DL435-30 Reports

A few hams have bought the Doodle Labs DL-435-30 transceiver.

The radio is capable of about 6 Mbps of data throughput utilizing a 5 MHz wide channel in the under-used 420-440 MHz ATV sub-band.

These were first made available in November 2011, so tests have been somewhat limited. However here are some initial conclusions:

At 20-30 feet using a 6 dBi gain omnidirectional antenna a couple different ham groups have seen 1/2 mile to 3/4 of a mile usable non-line of site mobile coverage using a 1/4 wave mag mount antenna. Both reports were in moderate to heavily mature tree neighborhoods.

Keep in mind at this low of a frequency, the height of the antenna will play a role to clear the large Fresnel zone and improve the performance.

The fact that you are not competing with your next door neighbors WiFi, makes these boards great for HSMM. If you can find a few hams in your area interested in it, there are bunch of possibility's for an OLSR network built on these things. Eliminating internet costs at repeater sites, repeater linking etc.

I'd appreciate hearing from other hams who are experimenting with this board wishing to share their reports.

Here is a short video that Kyle, N0KEW made:

802.11 Digital Audio Repeater Linking

Some time back I planted the idea of linking analog repeater together using 802.11/HSMM.

Instead of dedicated link channels usually on 440 MHz, you'd put some of that microwave spectrum to good use.

Since most repeaters are on commercial towers, achieving the required line of site and fresnel zone clearance shouldn't be a problem.

Each repeaters audio would be converted to VOIP using an Asterisk solution or now the plug and play CL-100 controller from CAT. (As seen above)

The advantage is now that is a multi-use link. There will be plenty of bandwidth left over for APRS i-gate traffic, Winlink, etc. Not only that, but other repeater linking could be done on the same 802.11/HSMM microwave backbone.

High speed Multi-Media interconnecting backbones can support radio linking of today as well as of the future.

Large regional and statewide linked repeater systems really should give this idea some consideration.

Vint Cerf: "Re-Thinking the Internet"

Vint Cerf is recognized as one of the fathers of the internet. (He was a program manager for the U.S. D.A.R.P.A.) He was recently invited back to Stanford where he graduated, to give a speech to future engineering students.

There is a lot of interesting history and things to get you thinking in his presentation.


Pay attention to the end of the presentation for this:

Wireless was absolutely a part of the internet architecture.

I'm uncomfortable with the idea that the emergency network is dependent on a system that is often know not to work during emergencies.

Or If the emergency occurs in an area where there isn't any cellular infrastructure. (Base-stations, back haul)

So I actually like the idea of doing down a different path.

Which is a mesh like thing, that can be ad-hoc.

I also rather like the idea that everything transported in that system is IP based. The part that I like is, it doesn't care how its carried, it doesn't know what its carrying. It could be voice, it could be video, the network is oblivious.

By the way the police and fire departments and EMS today have a lot of trouble communicating. Because their radios have to work at RF. If Instead if we said the whole base is IP.

And if you need to communicate by voice we will use VOIP. And if we have to we will do RF transformations in some portable nodes.

The whole idea is that your compatibility on an end to end to based on VOIP, and not on radio compatibility. We'd have a much more general architecture.

For some reason that unknown reason that obvious fact has been resisted or ignored by the public safety environment.

Miscellaneous HSMM

For those not aware, a normal 802.11 channel is about 20 MHz wide.



The Atheros Chipset used in some of the professional grade 802.11/Wifi products (like Ubiquiti) can support half (10 MHz) and quarter rate (5 MHz) channel widths.



Obviously the maximum data rate (normally 54 Mbps for a conventional 20 MHz wide channel) drops, but even at quarter rate is still very usable with a maximum data rate of 13.5 Mbps.

The open Atheros driver talks directly to the hardware abstraction layer (HAL), and is also capable of frequencies outside of the Part 15 band.

[For a while no open source HAL's existed that can let you do 5/10 MHz mode. You had to use MikroTik, StarOS, IkarusOS, DD-WRT and a few others for these modes. As of June 2010, it appears that 5/10 Mhz support seems to be implemented in ath5k now.]

You can see the feasible channel selection overlay here:
http://www.qsl.net/kb9mwr/projects/wireless/allocations.html
The channels in light blue fall into overlapping amateur band space. And are acceptable for HSMM operation.

As you can see you can squeeze seven 5 MHz wide channels below the first Part 15 channel on 2.4 GHz, two of which are completely outside of the Part 15 overlap. (Thus, should have quieter noise floors)

On the 5 GHz band, there are thirteen channels that are completely outside of the Part 15 overlap.

And even more interesting is that that within the Atheros chip it is possible for licensed developers to enable a local oscillator generation for a direct conversion radio transceiver. This is Not an open function, but irregardless, this is how 802.11 products on 900 MHz (Ubiquiti XR9), and 3 GHz (XR3) (as well as other places) are possible and on the market.

Open source drivers unlocked the possibility of additional frequency support. It allows programmers to be able to write a driver. In summary; Atheros has allowed a third party to create a layer between the low-level functions of its chips and high-level drivers via the madwifi/ath5k development.

So what about unlocking additional channels in other chipsets/hardware?

Broadcom is the the chipset of most common Linksys WRT54G routers.

Broadcom has for a long time declined to provide non-licensed access to it's chips. A project that has been working to reverse engineer access using legal means had released its first working drivers for Broadcom 4300 series chips a few years ago.

If you are into the nitty-gritty, a recently released (2010) Broadcom wireless driver seems to have structures which imply the PHY in the chips can be directly controlled to program HSMM channels.

Also see:
http://lwn.net/Articles/456762/

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/brcm80211

For a slightly less technical overview of the various aspects of Modifying Consumer Off the Shelf Wireless LAN devices for specialized Amateur use, have a look here:
http://www.qsl.net/kb9mwr/projects/wireless/modify.html

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I was recently asked my opinion about the use of Amateur Radio Networks like HamMesh, HamWan and BCWarn.

The question is pretty generic.  It all seems to stem from the ARRL HSMM working group from a number of years ago.  Despite that group falling apart, independently amateurs all over the place have embraced the technology.  It's great in my opinion.  As interest in voice  repeaters continues to wane, multi-media networks do make perfect sense.  These more modern types of networks have the potential to draw new blood into the hobby.  New hams who have software skills that can help the community with software defined radio and so forth.

Outside ham radio, as consumers were now live in a world where to keep thing interesting and new we have a flexible application space.  Be that apps on our phones, software on our PCs, and even firmware updates to our more hardware like devices.

That that has been notable absent in ham radio.  I.e. What it is when you buy it, is what it will be 5 years from now unless you want to totally replace it for the tune of several hundred dollars.

Ham radio used to be a good starting place for many who later entered broadcast and electronics careers.  Today those positions are few and far between due to disposable electronics and consolidation of engineers with mega broadcast groups.  What is the most notable/abundant "tech" career today is IT (information technology) work.

In my humble and simple opinion: These types of networks are long over due, and I am glad they are continuing to grow.  It helps ham radio stay relevant.

73'
Steve, KB9MWR
 

DIY Emergency Cell Tower

Chris Paget, KJ6GCG has over a decade of experience as an information security consultant and technical trainer for a wide range of financial, online, and software companies. Chris' work is increasingly hardware-focused, recently covering technologies such as GSM and RFID at venues such as Defcon and Shmoocon.

At the recent Defcon 18 conference he displayed a spoofed GSM cellphone tower using a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) transmitting 25 milliwatts, to present a GSM air interface to a standard GSM handset and uses the Asterisk software PBX to connect calls. The combination of the ubiquitous GSM air interface with VoIP backhaul could form the basis of a new type of cellular network that could be deployed and operated at substantially lower cost than existing technologies in the developing world.

http://openbts.sourceforge.net/

FCC rules aside, this is some powerful stuff. Imagine being able to restore cellular coverage in a disaster area using the foundation he has laid.

You can read more here:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/083010-open-source-voip-cell-phones-at-burning-man.html

Here is a video that shows a test call being placed from a softphone talking to an Asterisk PBX in conjunction with GNU radio and a USRP to create a Part 15 signal level call to a cellphone.




Regarding using HSMM style techniques for running an amateur cell site:

http://www.innismir.net/article/513


Here is a similar project which modifies android phone to use asterisk running on something called a mesh potato. This would be great for developing areas. Just drop some of the MP's with a battery and a solar cell and poof... a phone system.

http://www.villagetelco.org/

Another favorite is using asterisk with amateur radio and repeaters

http://ohnosec.org/drupal/

HSMM Mesh Network in Texas

In Collin County Texas a groups of hams have been making good use of HSMM technologies to update their Amateur Radio Communications Health-care Emergency Services (ARCHES). This was traditionally setup of two meter/ 70cm voice and packet radios at 9 Austin, Texas area hospitals.

The setup provides key patient data to the City of Austin Emergency Operations Center, during significant incidents, even if normal communications are unavailable. It's highly successful. During every activation, patient data and other traffic passed more quickly and accurately than all other techniques tested during the activations.

The ARCHES program has been so successful, we have been asked to expand the system to ~ 40 additional area hospitals and clinics in central Texas.

Due to the existing significant number of packet collisions using traditional packet radio with just 9 nodes, they are migrating to HSMM.

With 40 or more packet stations in the area, passing packet data could slow to a crawl due to packet collisions.

The stations could only transfer data at 1200 baud, at best. Attempts at using 9600 baud showed that common radios do not pass 9600 baud data well. They distort the data so badly, that many resends are needed to get data through.The effective data rate seldom exceeds 1200 baud.

The HSMM proof of concept was demonstrated least year by AD5OO, NG5V, and KD5MFW who achieved a 10 mile point to point link across downtown Austin, Texas using only 35mw.

The Austin HSMM SIG has incorporated Optimum Link State Routing (OLSR) into custom firmware to provide automatic linking of radios that will be placed on Water Towers throughout Collin County Texas.

For more info see: http://hsmm-mesh.org

HSMM VOIP Network in Spain

There is an interesting HSMM/ Asterisk VOIP network in Spain:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.bicubik.net/hsmmn/

Alex EA5HJX, Andres EA5HIQ, Pepe EA5SW, Paco EB5HTC, Javier EB5BXA, Boletin EA5SW, Paco EB5EA, Sergio EA5HFB, Ernesto EB5JDY and several other hams are researching new technologies and telecommunication systems.

Can you explain are in street language, What is Intended and this project will bring to ham radio and its benefits?

So we can all understand, a HSMM network is just one of many highway lanes that can move large amounts of data at high speed. What would be technologically wireless broadband network of high capacity in her ability to integrate all technologies: RF, VoIP, multimedia, data ....

What are the Objectives of the Project HSMMN?

To promote knowledge and new technologies to the general public: The HSMM project has not only a technical aspect but also a social aspect, with aims to bring new technologies and their application in the real world to the public with expertise or not. Disseminating knowledge and new technologies to the general public: The project has HSMMN Not Only But Also to Technical aspect of social aspect, with aims to bring new technologies and their application in the real world to the public with expertise or without them.

We intend that anyone interested can collaborate, learn and practice the knowledge acquired. Anyone interested can collaborate, learn and practice the acquired knowledge. To this end, talks and workshops are planned in various radio clubs and associations interested in the project. To this end, talks and workshops are planned in various radio clubs and Associations interested in the project.
    
Creation of a research group developing new technologies to the world of amateur radio: This project not only aims to develop the network, which is the chief end of it, but to bring together people interested in researching and learning about new technologies to help amateur radio operators and emergency services communications.

Unifcar technologies: using computer systems and hardware elements to create an IP data highway you can travel by all types of information: audio, video, telemetry, APRS, etc ...

Collecting, processing and sending information through a variety of different technologies such as for sending APRS weather information (winds, rainfall, air pressure, barometric pressure, etc)

Ability to provide automated voice announcements from a centralized control room radio repeaters as required. Capacity to Provide automatic voice announcements from a centralized control room radio repeaters as required.

Creating an information service of communications systems available by region, by using a geographic number to gain access from the fixed, mobile and IP (VoIP).

Integration of other communication networks: IRLP, DSTAR, WIRES-II, E-QSO, etc.

Interconnection of repeaters using wireless technologies: Wireless, WiMAX. Each repeater could put a computer capable of processing all the telephony and transform it into Voip (voice over IP) that is transported through the network to reach another repeater HSMMN and is decoded by joining together all repeaters creating a mesh. Each repeater Could put a computer capable of processing all the telephony and transform it into VoIP (Voice over IP). That Is Transported through the HSMM network Reaches Another repeater network and is decoded by joining together all repeaters creating a mesh.

The whole process will be use Free Software.


Entities in the world of emergencies communications in Spain have shown interest in this project as an additional operational tool to consider for future medium to long term. Access from the PSTN will be in collaboration with guifi.net. This is an area open, free and neutral telecommunications network built through a peer to peer agreement where everyone can join the network

It looks like a nice mix of HSMM, Asterisk SIP and app_rpt technologies.

Alex Casanova EA5HJX, writes that he is working to develop a box that is a router (IP), and Asterisk (VoIP) and gateway with radio (analog and digital radio). Maybe this box can help in disaster like Haiti. Around the HSMMN´s Project we are investigate to integrate Asterisk VoIP with analog or digital radios.

German HSMM Hamnet 2.0

Hamnet 2.0 is a radio based network designed by German radio amateurs, which connects the already available infrastructure of the amateur radio service to each other and will provide a new powerful base for a amateur internet wireless network.

The official launch of the project and the presentation was made on the amateur radio exhibition and conference on October 31, 2009 in Hanover, accompanied by relevant lectures.

Hamnet 2.0 works on the basis of the TCP/IP protocol, so that commercially available wireless routers can be used with no or minor modifications as the hardware. In addition, a separate hardware and firmware for this application was developed. They are using the Ubiquiti WLAN module NanoStation 5 on the 6-centimeter-band (5.7 GHz).

Their situation is probably much like that over here. Sharply declining use of existing obsolete, slow, failure-prone equipment. Due to some displacement by the Internet.

The idea and hope is to support cross services (voice, images, data, video etc.) by using TCP/IP as the base. Use of affordable a technology, and setup something independent from public networks. While arousing interest in experimenting with the new technology, and developing new applications.

They started by establishing a 10 km link between DB0SHA, in Hanover, and DB0UHI in Laatzen in less than 10 minutes. This was done just by holding the units in the air, which yielded a stable 16Mbit/s connection.

They expanded faster than they initially thought. Interconnecting D-Star Relays and linking of EchoLink gateways.

Trying some more DX paths showed immediate success of Hanover to Peine (32 km) using the bare module.

They have since used this technology to replace their 23cm 19.2 k links. And have connected over 9 points, and have others planned.

http://db0fhn.efi.fh-nuernberg.de/doku.php?id=projects:wlan:hamnet

British Columbia Wireless Amateur Radio Network.

The BCWARN infrastructure includes and supports:

-Electronic Mail via WinLink (over 2.4ghz microwave, AX.25 packet radio and Pactor3)
-D-Star Digital voice and data
-VoiceOverIP using Asterisk private branch exchange (PBX) open source telephony switching technology
-File sharing
-Remote printing and facsimile
-Video conferencing & instant messaging

http://www.bcwarn.net

Wisconsin Amateur Radio Club - Digital Backbone Project

I spotted this at Amateur Electronics Superfest. Their demo was a pair of IP phones interconnected via 2.4 GHz shotgun antennas.

They are deploying a 5.6-5.825 GHz high speed digital network in Southeast Wisconsin. They are using the Ubiquiti Bullet 5HP, a 1 watt 5 GHz capable transceiver.

Due to the 6-54 megabit bandwidth, multiple simultaneous communications can take place on a single channel. Any site can act as an intelligent digital repeater into the network and thereby expand the mesh...

Due to he 12 volt operation and the small, high gain antennas, a portable station can be quickly assembled in the field and added to the digital backbone network.

Field locations provide: VoIP telephone for command posts, real time high resolution video of conditions, e-mail and file transfers, extension of the digital network, and standard voice type QSO's.

You can view the overview handout of their digital backbone project here:

http://www.qsl.net/kb9mwr/projects/wireless/WIARC.pdf

Minneapolis Wi-Fi network aids rescuers - bridge collapse

So the real question is when are ARES/RACES groups going to realize its time to implement this using products like the Ubiquiti NS3/XR3 on 3 GHz, the lower half (2.3 GHz) of the 2.4 GHz ham band, the 5.8 GHz band, or even 900 MHz with something like the XR9.

Ubiquiti's AirOS firmware as well as popular third party firmware such as DD-WRT all now have mesh networking protocols like WDS (Wireless Distribution System) built in.

Mesh protocols are designed for self-healing networks that are able to load balance WAN (wide area network) access. They also combine some of the ideas contained in the Radio Shortest Path First protocol. If the you are not up to par on the dynamics of mesh networks, here are a few links:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Distribution_System
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network
http://www.olsr.org/ An ad hoc wireless mesh routing daemon
You may also wish to read the article by John, K8OCL, titled "New High-Speed Multi-Media Radio Mesh Networking," printed in the Fall 2008 CQ-VHF magazine.

Mesh is very powerful stuff. And when you throw SIP / Asterisk based telephony on top of it, you have an instant voice system. Just plug in an IP phone or analog telephone adapter. Now not only can you exchange large image files, email, word-processing and other files that emergency responders and served agencies find invaluable. You can also pick up a phone or (seamlessly) bridge existing ones that are dead due to a land-line failure... etc.

From: http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/high-speed-digital/emergency-communications.html

Emergency communications offer the greatest opportunity for Radio Local Area Network (RLAN) technology to excel and for amateurs to push the envelope in the public service sector, using this technology....

Another good read is the Winter 2005 issue of CQ-VHF. John, K8OCL wrote a HSMM column on a HSMM portable setup for EmComm organizations.

3.5 GHz HSMM

High Speed Multi Media (HSMM) is often referred to as being the Hinternet (Ham Internet), as it is primarily used under FCC Rules & Regulations Part 97. Under Part 97 commercial off-the-shelf equipment can be used at higher power and higher gain than the more common Part 15 802.11a/b/g operations.

The primary purpose for HSMM and Hinternet is to augment emergency communications via long range high speed wireless data networks that can handle voice, data and video communications. HSMM can also be used in the day-to-day aspects of Amateur Radio Communications.

---

One direction the High Speed Multi-Media Working group had was to develop in collaboration with TAPR, 3.3-3.5-GHz transverters suitable for use with 802.11 gear.

The thought is with the seemingly infinite amount of consumer wireless devices being deployed worldwide, the shared 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz noise floors are rising. The 3 GHz ham allocations are from 3.3 to 3.5 GHz yielding over 30 better suited non-overlapping full-width channels unshared with Part 15 unlicensed devices.

Ubiquiti Networks is a new company founded in 2005. Their "frequency freedom technology, seems to lead the way and promise integrated radio technology which uses an advanced RF integration and firmware design to provide a powerful platform capable of operation in any frequency imaginable. Basically Ubiquiti radios are Atheros chipsets with transverters onboard.

There are three different Ubiquiti XR3 frequency ranges that are version dependant (hardware limited ranges): XR3-2.8 (2.70-2.90 GHz), XR3-3.5 (3.40-3.70 GHz), and XR3-3.7.

The Ubiquiti XR3 XtremeRange3 is a mini-PCI Adapter 3.5GHz 400mW and lists for $240. The price is still considerably lower that an Icom ID-1 implementation and yields much higher throughput.

I few months back I blogged about their Nanostation. I have been finding the Atheros chipset ability to utilize 5 MHz channels very handy for side-stepping interference.

Well, they have out done themselves. At a starting MSRP of $49, NanoStation Loco provides a breakthrough in cost, reliability, & performance. It also is supported by a Linux SDK to encourage open source development.

NanoStation2/5 “LOCO” - This dual-polarity (auto-switching/diversity) 8db antenna has 100mw output and POE (18V). The 5ghz version comes with 13dbi integrated antenna. The NS2/NS5 “LOCO” does not have external antenna connector like the standard NS2/NS5. It's also a little less powerful, only 20 dBm (100 mW) instead of 26. (400 mW).. Keep in mind after market firmware hacks let you do nearly one watt with the normal NS2, so this is likely a low ended report of what is actually capable of.

If you need an external antenna, never fear http://ubnt.com/products/bullet.php

For the curious, here are some internal pictures of some Ubiquiti products

{Edit}
Check out Steve Ford's (WB8IYM) Eclectic Technology Column in QST June 2009
Titled "High Speed Multimedia at 3.5 GHz"