Flashing a Mikrotik Radio as an AREDN® Node

in this video i'd like to take you through the process from beginning to end for setting up a radio as an arden node arden stands for amateur radio emergency data network and each radio that's deployed is called a node a node can automatically link with other nodes that are in range to form a mesh network which allows computers to pass data at speeds that are comparable to typical internet type applications my first step in this process is deciding what my new arden node needs to do when it becomes part of the network for this video the mission or goal is to provide a way for the laptops and tablets at a medical aid station to communicate with other computers that are maybe several miles away they might be sending emails or brief text messages they could be placing a voip phone call or possibly joining a video conference with a doctor at a remote location or they might be connecting to a central database to log their contacts with some of the event participants from a technology standpoint the laptops and tablets at each aid station will use standard wi-fi to connect to an indoor short range mesh node that node can bridge its wi-fi network onto the mesh network but its range is very limited so it's unable to link across the distance to the mesh sector antenna which is located on a tower over a mile away what i need is a mid-range node that can bridge the gap between the short range node at the aid station and the tower node that has links to the larger mesh network there's a wide range of devices that can run arden firmware but i've got to narrow down the choices to a radio that can meet the specific needs of my situation ideally i want a radio that can provide a good local link as well as linking across the fairly long distance to the tower location the radio does not need a large beam width to cover a wide area but it also doesn't need a really narrow beam width either so a radio with a moderate beam width would work best it should also have fairly low dc power input requirements so it can run a long time on a rechargeable battery it would also be great if the radio had a fairly high rf output power the radio needs to be small and lightweight so it's easy to deploy for a variety of situations and finally the budget for this deployment isn't very large so the radio should have a fairly low cost there are several different radios that could meet those requirements but for this example i've chosen the microtic sxt sq2 the microtic sxt sq lite2 is very small and lightweight and it has built-in mounting slots so it can be easily deployed in a variety of situations it runs well from several different kinds of rechargeable batteries and it has an input dc voltage range between 10 and 30 volts the integrated 10 dbi gain panel antenna has a 60 degree beam width which is perfect for this situation the radio's rf output tops out at 30 dbm a full 1 watt so it provides a lot of flexibility for reaching the tower from different locations and it only costs between 40 and 50 dollars at the time of this video after picking up the radio i brought it home to install the arden firmware first i need to download the correct firmware images for this radio from the arden website i went to ardenmesh.org and clicked the software menu and then the download option i located the row in this table for microtic sxt sq2 on the software chart and then i clicked the factory link in the middle column to download the correct elf file finally i clicked the sys upgrade link in the right column to download the correct sysupgrade.bin file microtic radios need both of these files in order to complete the arden firmware install the exact steps for flashing firmware onto microtech radios are available in the online arden documentation first i need to give my computer a static ip address on the network that will be used later during the process of installing the firmware i'll give my laptop a static ip address of 192.168.1.100 with a 24-bit subnet mask in this view i'm manually setting the ip address for my laptop which happens to be running linux but the same process applies if you're using microsoft windows the arden documentation recommends that you connect your computer and the radio through a network switch instead of cabling them to each other directly this lets the switch maintain the network link for your computer's ethernet interface during the times when the radio is rebooting and dropping its link i'm also connecting the lan interface on the power over ethernet unit to the switch and i've plugged in the poe power jack but i'm not yet connecting the ethernet cable from the poe to the radio leave the radio powered off for now next i copied the microtic rb.elf boot image into the tftp directory that i created now i'll start the tftp and boot p server which on linux can be done using a single command line i specify the ethernet interface name and the local username as well as the ip address range to provide when the radio boots the rb.elf image once the server is started it will continue listening for any devices that request that boot image now i need to press the reset button on the radio while applying power it may take 15 or 20 seconds but eventually the radio will begin transferring that boot image once you see the sent message on the laptops boot p server you can release the reset button and you can also end the bootp server program the radio will now automatically reboot with the arden boot image and then it will be ready for completing the firmware install process i should be able to ping the microtic radio at 192.168.1.1 after it reboots now i'll open a web browser and enter the first boot url which is http colon slash 192.168.1.1 we will see the arden logo and the no call banner and here we press the setup button to authenticate to the radio and then navigate to the administration display where we can use the firmware upgrade section the username is root and the default password is hsmm hotel sierra mic mic since we are still in the process of completing the firmware install i'll immediately click administration and then browse to find the location on my laptop where i saved that sysupgrade.bin file press the upgrade button and wait until the firmware is installed the node is going to reboot a couple of times so be patient even though we've already visited the no call page we need to go back there now so we can enter the new node's basic settings i'll re-enter the first boot url and then click setup to log into the radio again on the basic settings page i need to enter a unique node name and a new admin password since i already know the correct rf channel and channel width that's being used on this mesh network i'll select those now too in addition i'll enter the node name of the existing ntp or network time server on the local mesh network that way this node's system time will match the other network devices once i click save changes the radio is going to reboot automatically when it comes back up it will have its own class a ip address in the 10 dot something range so at this point we can go back to our laptop or computer and change that ethernet interface so that it receives its lan ip address automatically from the node over dhcp now we can enter the new node's url to see the node status display now since i'm directly connected to the node i can enter http colon slash localnode.log or i could enter the url using the new node name as http colon slash ab7pa sxt2.log if you want to change any of the original configuration settings just click the setup button what i want to do is verify that my new node can link with the other nodes so i'm going to click the mesh status button here i see that the sxt2 can hear the aid station node which is called a15 and it can also hear the tower node which is called sector 120 so far so good finally i'm going to deploy the new node in the field i've identified a location where it will have short range coverage of the aid station as well as being able to link with the tower node further in the distance when my new node is deployed in the field i can see that it has good links with the other nodes and the data transfer rates are more than adequate for the network traffic that's going to be passed between them thanks for watching during the entire process of choosing flashing configuring and deploying this new arden node

Channel: AB7PA

Views: 1,315

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Id: B3LEAAsIWEA

Length: 12min 45sec (765 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 01 2021