Re: [nznog] Wireless link adversly affected by the sun?
Wow thanks for all the responses. In reply to Neil Fenemor: I can definitely see how thermal things like that and the way heat moves could effect things, the building we link to isn't too far away but the route as the crow flies is directly over the city and therefore a lot of asphalt and whatnot so I can see how that would cause problems. I imagine there's not a lot a lot that can be done to prevent/circumvent that other than changing to a different connection method. Irt Mark Foster & others regarding heat: This definitely sounds like something I'll have to look at further, I know the trango unit does have some kind of internal thermometer (probably for this very reason) so I'll look into a way of graphing the output from that. What kind of temperatures would be classed as too high? 40-50deg? Irt Dave, I'll reply off list. Cheers all, Michael Btw hopefully the weather keeps up, would be nice to see a warm end to winter :) ________________________________________ From: Ben Deller - Airnet NZ [mailto:ben(a)team.airnet.net.nz] Sent: Tuesday, 1 August 2006 4:22 p.m. To: Michael Davies Subject: RE: [nznog] Wireless link adversly affected by the sun? Hi Michael Perhaps try being more specific in isolating the problem. Is it latency and jitter in the wireless link or past the link out on another network (the internet)? Try the smokeping test to your ISP's network not the internet. Also have you checked you signal and noise levels on the wireless link? (Or asked your ISP to check this) It could be wireless interference from another network. Or it could just be too hot. Ben ________________________________________ From: Michael Davies [mailto:michael(a)hereisasite.co.nz] Sent: Tuesday, 1 August 2006 3:48 p.m. To: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Subject: [nznog] Wireless link adversly affected by the sun? Hi there, As the subject suggests, I've been noticing an interesting problem with our internet. We're lucky enough to be on the receiving end of a wireless net connection running through Trango broadband hardware, fairly conventional wireless tech. However I've noticed through monitoring the connection with smokeping to various places around the country that the connection quality seems to decrease dramatically through the middle of the day, but not every day. At first I thought that this was simply related to congestion somewhere, but from following the weather a bit I've started noticing that it gets worse on the nice sunny days. For example: Today, a balmy 17 degrees in Dunedin and beautifully sunny all day. Packet loss and jitter begins to increase at about 9am and peaks about 1pm with 60% loss, then at 2pm as if flicking a switch it returns to nearly 0% loss. From looking at the graphs over time, this does happen quite often but not every day and the loss today is definitely the worst I've seen it (but also the warmest/sunniest day we've had in Dunedin for quite a while). Has anyone seen or heard of this happening before? Would there be any way to prevent this - supposing that the sun is the culprit - short of installing a Mr. Burns type sun shield? Regards, Michael
Michael, The internal Trango thermometer is to monitor the Ethernet chip as in some of the radios it doesn't like getting cold <10C. I've had units running with the internal thermometer upto 48C before with no problems. I would think the most likely issue is interferance. First watch the rssi, log in to each end and do a 'rssi' on the su and 'su ping' on the ap, to make sure its not fading. Also do a linktest from the AP to see how many dropped packets you get. It could also be an inversion layer, unlikely but possible, that would partially explain it getting worse during the day.. cheers, bill Michael Davies wrote:
Wow thanks for all the responses.
In reply to Neil Fenemor:
I can definitely see how thermal things like that and the way heat moves could effect things, the building we link to isn't too far away but the route as the crow flies is directly over the city and therefore a lot of asphalt and whatnot so I can see how that would cause problems. I imagine there's not a lot a lot that can be done to prevent/circumvent that other than changing to a different connection method.
Irt Mark Foster & others regarding heat:
This definitely sounds like something I'll have to look at further, I know the trango unit does have some kind of internal thermometer (probably for this very reason) so I'll look into a way of graphing the output from that. What kind of temperatures would be classed as too high? 40-50deg?
Irt Dave, I'll reply off list.
Cheers all,
Michael
Btw hopefully the weather keeps up, would be nice to see a warm end to winter :)
________________________________________ From: Ben Deller - Airnet NZ [mailto:ben(a)team.airnet.net.nz] Sent: Tuesday, 1 August 2006 4:22 p.m. To: Michael Davies Subject: RE: [nznog] Wireless link adversly affected by the sun?
Hi Michael
Perhaps try being more specific in isolating the problem. Is it latency and jitter in the wireless link or past the link out on another network (the internet)? Try the smokeping test to your ISP's network not the internet.
Also have you checked you signal and noise levels on the wireless link? (Or asked your ISP to check this) It could be wireless interference from another network.
Or it could just be too hot.
Ben
________________________________________ From: Michael Davies [mailto:michael(a)hereisasite.co.nz] Sent: Tuesday, 1 August 2006 3:48 p.m. To: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Subject: [nznog] Wireless link adversly affected by the sun?
Hi there,
As the subject suggests, I've been noticing an interesting problem with our internet. We're lucky enough to be on the receiving end of a wireless net connection running through Trango broadband hardware, fairly conventional wireless tech. However I've noticed through monitoring the connection with smokeping to various places around the country that the connection quality seems to decrease dramatically through the middle of the day, but not every day. At first I thought that this was simply related to congestion somewhere, but from following the weather a bit I've started noticing that it gets worse on the nice sunny days.
For example: Today, a balmy 17 degrees in Dunedin and beautifully sunny all day. Packet loss and jitter begins to increase at about 9am and peaks about 1pm with 60% loss, then at 2pm as if flicking a switch it returns to nearly 0% loss. From looking at the graphs over time, this does happen quite often but not every day and the loss today is definitely the worst I've seen it (but also the warmest/sunniest day we've had in Dunedin for quite a while).
Has anyone seen or heard of this happening before? Would there be any way to prevent this - supposing that the sun is the culprit - short of installing a Mr. Burns type sun shield?
Regards,
Michael
_______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog
-- Bill Walker, MCSE, MCP+I ------------------------------------------------------------- NZ Tel: +64 21 190 4411 MSN: msn(a)wjw.co.uk UK Tel: +44 20 8123 3749 Skype: wjw.co.uk Email: bill(a)wjw.co.uk Postal: 47 Wroxton Terrace, Fendalton, Christchurch
I experienced something very similar to this in Jan/Feb of this year.
Client had a Trango link to one of our AP's. At about midday most days
the link would turn to crap, and would fix itself at about 3pm.
We monitor our AP's using SNMP and graph the RSSI (and a few other
things) every 5 minutes. Taking a look at the RSSI graphs showed that
between midday and 3pm the RSSI would drop by about 2dB, just enough
to make the connection turn to crap.
Our solution was pretty simple. We replaced the lower quality d2
Trango unit with a higher quality 5800 unit. The 5800's tend to work
with worse signals than the d2's can handle.
When swapping out the old unit, I checked out the surrounding area.
Immediately in front of the Trango unit was a large corrugated roof,
that was dark in colour. It was immensely hot and probably radiating a
lot of heat between the hours of midday and 3pm.
There's a whole heap of information on various problems like this on
the Trango forums - http://www.trangobroadband.com/forum/ .
Good luck with getting it all fixed.
Dave
On 8/2/06, Bill Walker
Michael,
The internal Trango thermometer is to monitor the Ethernet chip as in some of the radios it doesn't like getting cold <10C. I've had units running with the internal thermometer upto 48C before with no problems.
I would think the most likely issue is interferance. First watch the rssi, log in to each end and do a 'rssi' on the su and 'su ping' on the ap, to make sure its not fading. Also do a linktest from the AP to see how many dropped packets you get. It could also be an inversion layer, unlikely but possible, that would partially explain it getting worse during the day..
cheers,
bill
Michael, (Wearing Snap Hat) We monitor your radio from our end and don't see any issues with your connection. The only time we see loss is when you hit your bandwidth cap. I would suggest we talk directly ;) Kind regards Bill Bill Walker wrote:
Michael,
The internal Trango thermometer is to monitor the Ethernet chip as in some of the radios it doesn't like getting cold <10C. I've had units running with the internal thermometer upto 48C before with no problems.
I would think the most likely issue is interferance. First watch the rssi, log in to each end and do a 'rssi' on the su and 'su ping' on the ap, to make sure its not fading. Also do a linktest from the AP to see how many dropped packets you get. It could also be an inversion layer, unlikely but possible, that would partially explain it getting worse during the day..
cheers,
bill
Michael Davies wrote:
Wow thanks for all the responses.
In reply to Neil Fenemor:
I can definitely see how thermal things like that and the way heat moves could effect things, the building we link to isn't too far away but the route as the crow flies is directly over the city and therefore a lot of asphalt and whatnot so I can see how that would cause problems. I imagine there's not a lot a lot that can be done to prevent/circumvent that other than changing to a different connection method.
Irt Mark Foster & others regarding heat:
This definitely sounds like something I'll have to look at further, I know the trango unit does have some kind of internal thermometer (probably for this very reason) so I'll look into a way of graphing the output from that. What kind of temperatures would be classed as too high? 40-50deg?
Irt Dave, I'll reply off list.
Cheers all,
Michael
Btw hopefully the weather keeps up, would be nice to see a warm end to winter :)
________________________________________ From: Ben Deller - Airnet NZ [mailto:ben(a)team.airnet.net.nz] Sent: Tuesday, 1 August 2006 4:22 p.m. To: Michael Davies Subject: RE: [nznog] Wireless link adversly affected by the sun?
Hi Michael
Perhaps try being more specific in isolating the problem. Is it latency and jitter in the wireless link or past the link out on another network (the internet)? Try the smokeping test to your ISP's network not the internet.
Also have you checked you signal and noise levels on the wireless link? (Or asked your ISP to check this) It could be wireless interference from another network.
Or it could just be too hot.
Ben
________________________________________ From: Michael Davies [mailto:michael(a)hereisasite.co.nz] Sent: Tuesday, 1 August 2006 3:48 p.m. To: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Subject: [nznog] Wireless link adversly affected by the sun?
Hi there,
As the subject suggests, I've been noticing an interesting problem with our internet. We're lucky enough to be on the receiving end of a wireless net connection running through Trango broadband hardware, fairly conventional wireless tech. However I've noticed through monitoring the connection with smokeping to various places around the country that the connection quality seems to decrease dramatically through the middle of the day, but not every day. At first I thought that this was simply related to congestion somewhere, but from following the weather a bit I've started noticing that it gets worse on the nice sunny days.
For example: Today, a balmy 17 degrees in Dunedin and beautifully sunny all day. Packet loss and jitter begins to increase at about 9am and peaks about 1pm with 60% loss, then at 2pm as if flicking a switch it returns to nearly 0% loss. From looking at the graphs over time, this does happen quite often but not every day and the loss today is definitely the worst I've seen it (but also the warmest/sunniest day we've had in Dunedin for quite a while).
Has anyone seen or heard of this happening before? Would there be any way to prevent this - supposing that the sun is the culprit - short of installing a Mr. Burns type sun shield?
Regards,
Michael
_______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog
-- Bill Walker, MCSE, MCP+I ------------------------------------------------------------- NZ Tel: +64 21 190 4411 MSN: msn(a)wjw.co.uk UK Tel: +44 20 8123 3749 Skype: wjw.co.uk Email: bill(a)wjw.co.uk Postal: 47 Wroxton Terrace, Fendalton, Christchurch
participants (3)
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Bill Walker -
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Michael Davies