[Skimmertalk] Yes...A RP-16 can be made to work over a Wi-Fi link!

[Bob Wilson, N6TV]

Congrats.  Good to know.  Curious to know if it stays connected during
heavy snow or rain.

But it's about half the cost of the RP-16, so one has to be rather
motivated to do this.

https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-PowerBeam-PBE-5AC-Gen2-Performance-airMAX/dp/B076BMQ2CH/

73,
Bob, N6TV

On Sun, Aug 4, 2019, 6:57 PM Ted Gisske <gisske at offex.com> wrote:

> Yep…I got it to work.
>
>
>
> It wasn’t trivial, but it is working. My skimmer is located about 150’
> from my shack, with the antenna (a Cushcraft R7) up on a 50’ tower. It is
> “remotely” located, as I am a QRO contester, and want it to still work
> during contests. It is very inconvenient to run some sort of wired Ethernet
> link to my skimmer, so I explored ways to do it via radio (we are hams,
> after all..).
>
>
>
> My skimmer is in an unheated pole-shed in WI, so sees some pretty extreme
> temps. I have been running the skimmer in the pole-shed for 4+ years, but
> the environment is pretty harsh and have I had computer (and frequency
> stability) issues over time. A GPS disciplined LO for my QS1R fixed the
> stability problems, and a 802.11g Wi-Fi link got data to the shack. A lot
> better idea seemed to be running just the skimmer SDR in the shed and
> running the computing part of the setup in a nice cozy shack.
>
>
>
> That wasn’t easy with my QS1R, as it ran off a USB cable. I recently
> upgraded to a Red Pitaya 16-bit SDR, which runs off an Ethernet link, so,
> if I could get a reasonably fast Ethernet link to my remote receiver, I
> would be in high clover.
>
>
>
> That, however, was a significant challenge. The RP-16 is a promiscuous
> consumer of bandwidth. A fully commissioned RP-16 (sixteen 192 kHz slices)
> munches up 160Mbps. You ain’t gonna get that bandwidth out of an 802.11
> a/b/g/n Wi-Fi link. Further complicating the issue is that a dead-solid
> Wi-Fi link is necessary, as Skimmer Server locks up on a data dropout and
> you have to go thru a fairly tedious reboot sequence to get it QRV. Both
> Skimmer Server and WSJT-X also get very deaf if they don’t get the full 10
> Mbps/slice connectivity.
>
>
>
> It is possible to make it all work, though. A relatively new (~5 years
> old) Wi-Fi standard called 802.11ac, featuring “Gigabit” speed is available
> at a reasonable price. I bought a couple of Ubiquiti NanoBeam 5AC Gen2
> antenna/radio modules for a reasonable price from Amazon. They form a
> transparent RF Ethernet bridge from the shack to the shed.
>
>
>
> I put Gigabit in quotes above as that is advertising Bravo Sierra. With
> the 2 antennas 6” apart, I could get ~650 Mbps thruput. I can, however get
> the same thruput 150’ away. I can get 450 Mbps thru a window, which oddly
> enuf, attenuates the link by 20dB. Either speed is plenty, though. Some
> folks claim a 9 mile path works with these devices. I would not plan on 650
> Mbps at that range though.
>
>
>
> So yah…You can run a RP-16 SDR remotely and connect it to the mothership
> via Wi-Fi, if you do it right.
>
>
>
> 73,
>
> Ted
>
> K9IMM
>
>
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