[HamWAN PSDR] Required hardware

[Nigel Vander Houwen]

Doug,

The short answer to your question, is yes, Mikrotik is the only compatible manufacturer.

The long answer is that standard wifi protocols face a number of challenges in the long range and complex environment posed in a network like ours (timing limits, hidden nodes, etc). There are specialized protocols that better handle those challenges. At the time we were selecting what hardware we were going to work with, the options that made sense were Mikrotik’s NV2 protocol, or Ubiquiti’s AirMax protocol. Both of which are proprietary and would have locked us into the single vendor setup we have now. We chose to go with Mikrotik because their modems were capable of significantly more flexibility in the routing and configuration than the Ubiquiti modems were at the time.

So yes, it is only a single vendor that is compatible over the air. The choice was made for technical reasons that haven’t changed in the interim, as much as we’d like to have the option for a vendor agnostic protocol, it isn’t really available to us.

As was noted separately, the modem is in theory a fairly small part of your setup. You can put whatever devices you like plugged into the ethernet side, and work as normal. Just the RF part itself requires a Mikrotik radio.

Thanks,
Nigel

> On Dec 5, 2020, at 12:51 PM, Doug Crompton <wa3dsp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I notice that you specify only Mikrotik router/modem products. Is this the only manufacturer that makes a product that works with your network. Does Ubiquiti make a product that would work? Or anyone else? It seems it would be prudish to not depend on one manufacturer.
> 
> 73 Doug
> WA3DSP
> http://www.crompton.com/hamradio <http://www.crompton.com/hamradio>
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