Metro service in Glencullen - What to do

Jattie

I've been waiting anxiously for almost the last year when I was informed that Digiweb would cover Glencullen in the next couple of months and then came the launch and what a disappointment when I was informed that Glencullen is still not covered and that it's not very likely to happen any time soon in any case since we fall in dead ground from the 3 rock masts and dishes.

So my question, is it possible to get some cost effective repeaters going to get the signal across the hill to the dead ground between the 3Rock towers and Glencullen village. To be more specific, if I look at the Metro service setup, it consists of an antenna, a radio device an the a cable modem so the radio devices simply substitutes the wire, so two antennas and two radios should be able to perform as a repeater. Can Digiweb cost these components seperately and supply me with the equipment to do the experiment before I sign a contract? A solar panel and a lead acid battery should be sufficient to keep this setup going for some time I'm sure.

Is there any knowledge or experience out there in this area? Does anyone know what the radio frequenct range is for the Metro service, this should already help in getting a cost effective radio solution going to act as a repeater station.

Ruffty^

That sounds complicated, would moving house be less hassle?

Jattie

I was actually expecting to get some more constructive proposals than moving house.

Sponge Bob

Jattie wrote:

I was actually expecting to get some more constructive proposals than moving house.

If you have no LOS you are in trouble . I take it you are behinds (s or se or sse) of the 3 Rock mast complex with no direct line of sight but a map tells eveything and you never attached one to your message

Have you approached a neighbour with LOS both to you and to the 3 Rock complex . They could get it (share with you) and use cheap wifi 802.11b or g gear the rest of the way to your place .

shamage

Jattie wrote:

So my question, is it possible to get some cost effective repeaters going to get the signal across the hill to the dead ground between the 3Rock towers and Glencullen village.
Is there any knowledge or experience out there in this area? Does anyone know what the radio frequenct range is for the Metro service, this should already help in getting a cost effective radio solution going to act as a repeater station.

Please please don't try anything like this.

Metro operates in the 3Ghz licenced band. operating a device that emmits RF in this band without a licence is a not a good idea

Jattie

Thanks for all the constructive input, we're making some good progress now. SPongebob, I like your idea, but everyone I know that wants broadband is in the same position, no LOS.

Shamage, you seem to know what you're talking about, and I am not proposing or trying to do anything illegal, that's why I posted on this formum, in the hope to gain knowledge and information and take a proposal forward for the community to get a service for myself and all others and our local schools etc. I understand the problems and licensing etc etc, I just need to be clear on what's required, if it is feasable and if it's friven from the community we can overcome lots of stumbling blocks. I was hoping that Digiweb can supply the equipment and licensing etc etc and make it legal and help us get a service here, sooner rather than later. Since I can not speak with technical support staff on the phone I was hoping to get an audience here and get a dialogue going with the right people to help me achieve this.

We're all located in ballybetagh road and not in sght of the tower, but 100m up the hill towards the tower we can see the masts. All coax cables have losses but how far can I go on that, if my station is out up the hill with a local 802.11 device and a directional antenna I might be able to do it, but what is the power consumption on these devices , i.e. the radio and modem and would I be allowed to do it like that?

I do a lot of work from home and there's lots of static and noise on my phone line plus I'm spending way too much on my phone bill for dailups.

shamage

Jattie wrote:

Thanks for all the constructive input, we're making some good progress now. SPongebob, I like your idea, but everyone I know that wants broadband is in the same position, no LOS.

Think you would be better going with SPongebob's idea rather than running 100m of coax. Howmany people do you have in the area. Is clubbing togeather to get a leased line out of the question ?

Ruffty^

Jattie, the mast you are trying to get a signal off could also be facing the wrong way. The masts don`t have 360 degree coverage, its more like 270 I think. Appologies for my first response but your plan had a factor of 10 hassle wise.

I live in moycullen a village outside of galway. There is a mast on top of a hill nearly, unlike you most of us have LOS but the mast was slightly facing the wrong way and we were too far away. My community set up a Group Broadband Scheme and got support from the government. Basically companies can`t afford to bring the infrastructure to small villages without the risk of financial loss. So the gov helps to pay. In our situation we needed an extra hop to reach the nearest IBB mast. This was setup by a local company Cellcom and they buy bandwidth off IBB. This is happening all over the country.
I realise you have missed the april 28th deadline but maybe you could work something out and still get in. I don`t know if this scheme would be suitable in your situation but its another avenue to look at.

http://www.dcmnr.gov.ie/Communications/Group+Broadband+Scheme/Group+Broadband+Scheme.htm

Sponge Bob

100m is easily doable with an Aironaut box or similar . While you can easily source these off sites like Irishwan I would advise you to be careful with some of the people on Irishwan who may offer you a solution 'in the box' as it were and most especially if they always always seem to send you PMs but never post publicly on that site where others may see their 'offer' and comment on its viability .

There are some very good people on that site in the Dublin area. Do not bother them right now until you do a bit more research yourself and unless you find them prepared to state clearly in public on Irishwan what they 'propose' for your community before you call anyone out on site .

100m is bread and butter distance for Irishwan . Its up to you to make sure that your local tower can be serviced, otherwise you have a local wan with no backhaul.

crawler

shamage wrote:

Please please don't try anything like this.

Metro operates in the 3Ghz licenced band. operating a device that emmits RF in this band without a licence is a not a good idea

Metro in the the 3ghz band?....no it doesnt But you are correct - operating illegally in licensed frequencies is both illegal and very unfair on those who paid for the frequency bands. Dont do it .

dkane

The metro gear had a down convertor built in to the antenna which convets the signal onto a UHF channel and is then ran down satellite grade coax to your radio beside your computer. With good coax there shouldnt be any problem running 100m

Jattie

Guys, thanks again for all the feedback. All the little bits help. I'll address all the feedback individually.
shamage: Clubbing together could be an option, but like I stated before, I'm investigating options for myself, but also for the local community and our local school. If it's not 100% legal, I can not really propose that locally.

Ruffty^: My area is covered, except for me being in dead ground, people further away from the tower across the valley from me get coverage. The option you mentioned seems like a viable solution to buy bandwidth for re distribution locally, that definitely seems viable and I'd like to investigate that further. If that fails I might explore the second option and the link you included.

Spongebob: I'll keep Irishwan in mind.

crawler and dkane: The points you raised are ones I'd like to explore further. I've implemented several telemetry based control systems on both licensed and open frequency ranges. Licensing radio based application is not simply based on the frequency, but also the power used by the application that does the transmission. The 802.11 devices works in the 2.4GHz band and are allowed to do so because the band is generally reserved for that, but you don't have to license that because of the low power. Low power is different from locations to location and generally between 100-300mwatt. The 802.11 devices transmits at a maximum of 100mwatt and by using external directional antennas you can increase your range without increase in power.

Power generally gets you over dead ground with radio, but in the microwave range we need LOS and that's the main issue here as already discussed.

That brings me to the last comments of dkane and crawler. The way to extend any service is to officially install a repeater. The repeater will receive a signal on the transmission frequency and retransmit on another frequency. A repeater generally consists of a radio and a radio modem and from a users perspective it acts just like a cable, it's just transmitted via the radio links. General microwave links does exactly the same, fully duplexed. What I described above generally applies to simple radio based serial data transmissions and since microwave is generally transmitted with directional antennas I assume that transmitting and receiving on the repeater could happen on the same frequency.

What I would like to explore is to find out if there is a way to take the converted UHF channel from the coax coming from the antenna and transmit that across a radio link, using a low power device with a directional antenna, so effectively putting a legal radio link at a legal frequency and low power of 100mw in place of the coax between the antenna and the modem/radio is something that I would like to investigate.

So in summary, if I could get some responses on the following questions.

1. I assume 2.4GHz is an open frequency and can be used at 100mwatt power output.
2. Is there any existing equipment that can be used to transmit a UHF channel fully duplexed over 100m range.
3. Is there some published information on radio frequency allocations and open frequencies and the power limits that applies to the open ranges?

Thanks again for all the contributions from everyone, please keep them coming.

Jattie

Sponge Bob wrote:

I take it you are behinds (s or se or sse) of the 3 Rock mast complex with no direct line of sight but a map tells eveything and you never attached one to your message
QUOTE]

Is there some way to get actual maps of coverage online on the Metro service?

dkane

Easiest thing would be to just run a cable, you’re not going to loose much signal because UHV travels very well over cable.

It’s definitely possible to put in a 2.4 GHz link if a cable is not practical (just like the TV senders you can use around your house). Only problem would be powering the downconvertor. The metro gear supplies power up the coax to the unit.

Jattie

Sponge Bob wrote:

If you have no LOS you are in trouble . I take it you are behinds (s or se or sse) of the 3 Rock mast complex with no direct line of sight but a map tells eveything and you never attached one to your message

I did lots of searching and research and even managed to piece a nice map together.


There's no doubt, I'm in dead ground. Pity Digiweb does'nt publish the maps!