Ubiquiti NanoBridge M5: first installation experience or out-of-the-box wifi bridge

Warning: there is nothing special in the article, people who at least put wifi bridges at least a couple of times have a good idea of ​​everything described here.

Formulation of the problem

1) connect providers who are absent from the house;
2) send your Internet to friends;
3) get experience in setting up Ubiquiti equipment

Equipment selection

Passed quickly and easily - I have heard more than once about inexpensive and well-proven bridges from Ubiquiti.
The choice of the NanoBridge M5 was determined by the frequency range (operating in a less noisy 5 GHz), integrated with a transmitter antenna (my model with 300mm 22 dBi), a ready-to-use kit (transmitter + antenna + PoE adapter), support for MIMO 2x2.

A week and a half of languid waiting for the parcel were brightened up by reading the specialized forums and how-to-sheks for tuning, reports about the launch of long links for 10-20-30 km are also found in abundance. Such distances were not included in my tasks - only 300 m over three high-rise buildings, the final useful strip is much more critical.

And it happened - the courier brings the desired box. We open, we study a complete set: Laminate is littered




We turn on, change, hammer in the minimum necessary settings, test the work in conjunction. Nothing unexpected - it just works.

Having played enough with the points on the stand, we proceed to the most “fascinating” procedure - getting the keys to the roof. Having passed this incredibly dreary quest (with cheats), we begin to look for a convenient place to install equipment.

Criteria :

1) do not drill anything
2) the minimum distance for laying the cable
3) the installed equipment should not interfere with anyone

As the fastening point, the top of the radio support was chosen. Ideally, I would like my brackets, but paragraph "1" was strictly required.

ATTENTION! Try to avoid using other people's supports, especially with live wires! Carry out all work extremely carefully!

Mounting

We violate electrical safety standards. Shadows were directly involved in the installation, thanks to them .

Customization

Here we need to make a small remark - no one did the exact adjustment, the antennas were brought exclusively to the eye. A very small distance (by the standards of the hardware used) forgives us this flaw.

Final point settings: It is also worth turning off the reset button to the factory settings - the network has feedback about troubles when moisture gets on its contacts. We remove the flag System> Miscellaneous> Reset button Comments on parameters: WDS - transparent bridge mode Country Code - select “Compilance test” to remove the restrictions on the channel width Frequency Scan List - set a fixed frequency of operation, VERY much faster connection of points Aggregation - increases channel utilization empirically selected












ATTENTION ! Be careful when changing Wi-Fi connection parameters! Use the preliminary testing mode - this will protect you from walking to the far side of the bridge.

The access point has a built-in connection speed tester, go to Tools> Speed ​​Test and see what happened:



After some thought, it was decided - the speed is sufficient, we implement the plan further.

VLAN and all-all-all

The network operation scheme is as simple as three pennies - providers' laces are entered in DES-1100-16, marked vlan tag 111, 222, 333, sent by air to the router to pfSense 2.0.
Tag 444 is management vlan and, in combination, lokalka to friends.

We select a secluded place, we bring power, we mount a switch: The switch which was naked and overgrown with providers

Afterword

The link has been in operation since the summer - there are no problems. Rain, snow and wind do not affect signal quality. Thinking of lightning protection and UPS.

Thanks for attention.