Getting Started with AREDN

So you want to get started with AREDN but aren't sure quite what to do? This document will walk you through buying your first radio, putting the AREDN software on it, and connecting it to the rest of the AREDN network.

What equipment do I need?

AREDN supports a vast array of hardware, and it can be overwhelming picking a radio when starting out. You can find the full list here but to make things simple we're going to recommend one specific radio to start.

Ubiquiti airMAX NanoBeam 5AC Radio

The Ubiquiti NanoBeam is a nice little starting radio. It usually retails for about $99, is small and discreet, and mounts with a ball joint. This makes it easy to point up, down, left and right; handy when we need to aim it at another radio.

If you don't want to go with this radio, we'd still recommend sticking with Ubiquiti AC devices. You can find a selection at Ubiquiti here; but please verify we support the exact model (our list is here) before making a purchase.

Power Over Ethernet Injector

All the Ubiquiti radios are powered using 24vdc provided over the ethernet cable. This is termed "Power-Over-Ethernet" or just "PoE". When you purchase a radio it will come with a PoE injector.

Setting up the Hardware

Above we show how you will setup your radio, injector, and laptop using two ethernet cables, and the mains power cable which comes with the injector. First plug in the mains power to the injector. Next, plug an ethernet cable into the radio, making sure to choose the correct port (see above). Next plug the other end of that ethernet cable into the injector. Injectors come in various different guises, but all with have two ethernet ports. One goes to the radio, the other to your laptop. The one going to the radio will include power and this is the one we want to use now. Most likely it will be marked as "PoE"; the other will be marked "LAN". If the cable is correctly connected one of more of the lights on the radio will illuminate. If this doesn't happen, recheck that you've connect both ends correctly. Nothing will be harmed if you get this wrong, but the radio wont be powered until it is all correct. Then, once at least one light on the radio is on, plug another ethernet into your laptop and the remaining port on the injector.

How do I install the AREDN software?

The AREDN documentation goes into great detail describing the steps to install the AREDN software onto your chosen device. Unfortunately there isn't just one way to do this, as different hardware and manufactures require different steps.

Installing

When selecting hardware above, we suggest picking a Ubiquiti AC radio as a starting device. The instructions to install the software on this radio can be found here. But if you selected a different device, you can find installation steps for all supported devices here.

AREDN First Boot

If you've followed all the AREDN installation instruction you will eventually see this screen as documented here and shown below.

You'll need to provide a name for your AREDN node. This starts with your callsign (capitalized) and then some sort of signifier. People use lots of different things here, including the hardware name, short location information, or just the name of a pet - it really can be anything.

Then set a password. Write it down. There's no way back in if you forget it.

Hitting Save & Reboot will make these changes permanent and reboot the node into a basic AREDN configuration.

Where do I point it?

Once you have your AREDN radio ready to go, you need to point it at another neighbor node in order to connect. You might be able to find other AREDN nodes by talking to other user in your club. Alternatively you can use our AREDN map.

AREDN World Map

If you click on https://bit.ly/arednworldmap your browser will open our world map. The browser will ask permission to see your location and, if granted, the map will be positioned with you in the center. This immediately lets you see what other AREDN nodes exist around your location and is a great starting point for finding someone to connect to.

On the map you will see various colored markers indicate different kinds of AREDN radios. Your Ubiquiti radio uses the 5GHz band, so you want to look for orange radios markers near you. If you click on them, popups will open showing properties about that radio.

In a perfect world you can stand on the nice flat roof of your house and see in all direction without anything in the way. Reality is usually more annoying. There are probably limited mounting places for the radio which will determine which directions it can point. You must also have a clear line-of-site between you and your target neighbor. One tree is too many trees. Also check the direction your potential targets are pointing. As long as a target is aiming approximately in your direction you can probably connect, but if it points somewhere else entirely it's not going to work.

By using the map, and considering local conditions, you will hopefully be able to narrow down your choice to one neighbor node to connect to. Maybe there are many; in which case just pick the closest. You can always try other neighbors later.

Once you've selected your neighbor, you need to know its approximate heading from your location. It might be obvious looking at the map, but if not you can use the map's Measuring Tool. To use this click the word Measure on the right of the menu pillbox on the top/left of the map. Then using your mouse click on the location you intent to mount your radio, and the location of your select Neighbor. The map will add a red line between these two points and in the menu pillbox will show the distance between them as well as the heading from the first point to the second. You can repeat this process as many times as you need to; hitting the escape key when you are done.

How do I connect?

Once you've identified where to point your new radio, you need to configure it so it will connect.

Configuring the Radio

Once we've selected our target neighbor, we need to configure our radio so it will connection. To do this we need to set the location of our radio, and what frequency to transmit and receive on.

The above image show a typical radio's UI. An extensive description of each piece of this can be found in the AREDN documentation, but for now we are only concerned with the two areas highlighted in the red boxes.

Authenticating with the UI

By default the UI is read-only; you need to authenticate before you can change anything.

In the top/right corner of the UI you'll see a symbol like this:

Click this to open the login dialog which looks like this:

Enter the password you chose when first installing the node and hit RETURN. You will then be authenticated to the node and able to change its configuration.

Setting the Location

Next we'll set the location of the node. The location needs to be set because the timings of the radios need to account for the time it takes to transmit data between nodes.

As you move your cursor around the UI you'll see it highlight active areas. Clicking on each of these areas will open a dialog to let you configure those settings. To configure the location you'll find the setting at the bottom/left of the UI; it probably says "Unknown Location" at this moment. If you don't see this scroll the web browser until it comes onto the screen. Highlight and click this; and you should see a dialog something like this:

In the above you can see a map, but you may not see one while doing your first configuration.

To se the location enter the Latitude and Longitude into the two names fields, then hit Done to complete.

At the top of your screen you will now see a banner something like this:

Changes you make are not finalized until you hit Commit here. This gives you a change to abort and start again. For the moment we're going to ignore this banner. We'll come back to it once we've made all the other changes we need.

Setting the Radio frequency and bandwidth

In the top/right of the UI you'll see the Radio configuration. Click on this to open the Radio dialog.

The dialog will look something like what's show above. There are lots of options, but for now we are only concerned with setting the Radio Purpose, Channel, Channel Width and Transmit Power. These settings needs to match those for the node you chose earlier as your target. The map will have indicated what Channel and Channel Width you should set here. They should match your target. In all likelihood the Radio Purpose will be the default, Mesh, but if your target is marked at PtMP then set the mode to Mesh Station. Finally, make sure the Transmit Power it set to the maximum possible value. On this radio that's 27.

Hit Done. Then at the top of the screen hit Commit. After a short while the new radio configuration will be set. You may be asked to Reboot at this point. If so, reboot and wait for the node to come back up.

Now you're ready to mount the node outside.

Mounting the Radio Outside

The Ubiquiti NanoStation 5AC Radio is waterproof, as are all the Ubiquiti AC radios, so no additional waterproof case is required. Mounting the radio is just a matter of finding the idea place outside, and clamping the included plastic ball joint to it. Instructions included with the radio discuss mounting options, but the simplest way is to use the included hose clamp to attached the radio to a pole. The hose clamp is not the best quality, but it will do the job. Because the ball joint gives a lot of flexibility in pointing the radio, you only need to have the pointing in the approximate direction at this stage.

Using your phone as a compass

All modern phones include an internal compass. It won't be as accurate as a good quality, analog compass; but for pointing your radio is approximately the right direction, it's good enough.

Alternatively, if you click on https://bit.ly/arednworldcompass on your phone, your browser will open the world map compass. After asking you for permission to access your location and phone's internal compass, it will draw a map with you in the middle, and will rotate the map around you as you rotate your phone.

You will also see lines leading off from the map's center towards close AREDN radios in your area. As you rotate your phone the names of their neighbor nodes will scroll across the top of your screen as you point towards them. This should make it easy to find the neighbors you previously identified as ones to connect to.

Remember; the internal compass in most phones can easily be off by 5 degrees or more, and will be affected by metal objects around it. But this should get you pointing in approximately the right direction.

Powering the Radio on the roof

Temporary Setup

Once the radio is on the roof we need to power it. For testing you can do this in whatever way makes sense using whatever cables you have on hand. For now the injector and power can all be outside, even though they aren't waterproof and will need to be inside eventually. This will make the next steps easier, as we'll need to make sure we're pointing at the target, and that we've optimized our connection by tweaking the antenna heading and elevation.

Permanent Setup

Once the radio is on permanently on the roof we need to use outdoor rated ethernet cabling; CAT5 or better. We use this and it's never failed us, even after many years; but you may not want to buy 1000ft of cable for one radio. There are lots of options, but make sure it's outdoor rated. The sun will quickly destroy indoor cable ... unless the rodents eat it first.

The injector which comes with the radio is not outdoor rated and must remain inside.

[picture of radio on the roof, cabling down, injector and laptop inside]

The above shows a simple setup. The radio is mounted on the roof with a length of outdoor rated ethernet running down, into the house, where it connects to the PoE injector.

Checking your Target

Depending on how you're doing your install, it can be difficult to juggle a laptop and the newly installed radio while on top of a roof, up a tower, or on a ladder. It is often a good idea to get a friend to help with this part; allowing them to look at the various tools in the software while you tweak the direction of the antenna.

WiFi Scan Tool

Let's start by scanning for your chosen neighbor. Assuming you are still logged into your node from earlier when you configured it, you can open a tool menu by clicking the bottom/left screwdriver and wrench icon. Select the WiFi Scan option which should be at the top of the menu.

Unless you've run this tool before, the screen will be mostly blank. To start, or restart, a can click the Scan button near the lower/right corner. Scanning can take 30 seconds to complete so don't rush here. Once it is complete you will see a display similar to the one shown below.

This list all the radios, AREDN and non-AREDN, that this node can see from its current position and orientation. Some hardware will show you everything, while some only shows you the specific channel you have configured. For our purposes we only want to check that we can see the neighbor we expect. With luck it will be the top, or at least near the top, of the list with the expected Hostname shown. The Signal column in the display is the value we really care about for our neighbor; the high the value (keeping in mind these are negative, so higher values are lower negative numbers) the better.

Optimizing your connection

We could use the WiFi Scanner above to optimize the connection; adjust the antenna, scan, check the Signal value, and repeat until we get the best value. Instead we'll use the WiFi Signal tool.

Wifi Signal Tool

You can find the WiFi Signal tool in the same menu you found the WiFi Scan tool. When you open the tool it will look similar to the picture below.

On the left of the tool you will see two bar graphs, one for the Local signal and one for the Remote. We cannot always show the Remote signal, so sometime the bar will be missing. The bars track the best signal seen (grey), the worse (red) and the current (green). The graph so the right of the bars keep the last 5 minutes of signal history.

In the top/right of the tool is a dropdown for each neighbor this radio can see. You should start by selecting the appropriate neighbor from this drop down. Once that's done you can now adjust the heading and elevation of your node until the Local and Remove signals are the best you can make them.

Node Install Completed

At this point the node is on the roof, perfectly aimed at a neighbor, and the outdoor rated cabling complete. Success - your first node is installed.

I read all this and still need help

If you've read all this and still need some help, please complete this form https://bit.ly/meshinstall and we'll do our best to find someone to help you get started.