The past week was sort of stressful, but i decided to take it easy and not to bother myself too much, because i knew the cause of our problems and we were going to take care of it.
Well Monday was interesting because. My MD complained that he could not work from his home. So i had to go over to check the problem. We have a bridged network from the office to the MD's house. Bridged networks are very much in use today, because its more cost effective than having a VSAT installation in all your office site. An organistion with a lot of branches in a state for example could use a Bridged network within that state. All they would need is the VSAT installation in there main main branch, then a radio link will be set up between the main office and the various locations. This means that every other location has to have a radio installed too. The organistation could now set up the wireless link between its main office and branch offices as a bridge, so that only radios in there network can associate with the access point in the main branch.
Now befor i left for my MD's place i called a Rigger. We got there and i started trouble shooting from inside the house. The radios we used in this wireless link are powered by POE's (Power Over Ethernet) adaptors. The POE, is a small device that powers wireless radios thorough the 4 unused wires in an etherenet cable. One end of the POE is connected to the lan, the other end goes straight to the wireless device. The POE is then powered with an adaptor. The advantage of POE is that one Ethernet cable connecting from the POE to a wireless radio can be used for both power and data. This removes the need for having a seperate power source for the radio.
After pinging the wireless radio a couple of times from the LAN inside my MD's home, i found out that the radio always freezes after a couple of minutes. When you restart the radio, by disconnecting it from the POE and conecting it back, i was able to ping the wireless radio in the house, and ping across to the radio in the office. After a couple of minutes, the link from the house to the office will start timeing out. When i first examined the POE, i found out that it was wet and there was water driping from the cable connecting the wirless radio on the mast. disconnecting the cable, i noticed that the pins that carried power to the radio were burnt. I just hope that this would not have caused a mojor damage to the radio.
I had to cut the cable between the POE and the radio short because the amount of water we found in the cable was not acceptable. We have a 40 metre ethernet cable running from the POE in the house to the wireless radio on the mast. It was suprising how water got into the cable and all the way to the POE. After recrimping the cable and running a couple of pings again, we decided that the radio on the mast had to be brought down, and the ethernet cable between the radio and the POE had to be changed.
The Rigger could not get acces to the radio, since the mast which it was on was being shared by my MD and the company next to him, and the security guard there did not let us in because his boss was not around to give him permission. We left MD's house and went back to the office to make sure everything was alright from that end. On getting to the office, the rigger climed up the mast, and on bringing the radio down, we found out that water some way found its way into the radio. During installation of the wireless radio, we never thought this would happen, because we thought these were outdoor equipments, and that they were made to resist to such conditions. Well maybe they were not made to withstand the kind of rain we experience in Nigeria.
After cleaning and sealing all teh edges of the radio, the rigger climed back and installed the radio on the office mast. We pinged the radio Wireless radio in the office, and everything seemd alright. We tried pinging across to the radio in MD's house, but to no avail. We scanned for other radios in the area, and we found a whole lot of other radios. So we concluded that from this end everything was ok and that the problem now must be from MD's side, since we did not have permission to bring down his radio. We were about leaving for his house when rain started falling. You know riggers cant work under that condition. We postponed the job till another day.
Well Monday was interesting because. My MD complained that he could not work from his home. So i had to go over to check the problem. We have a bridged network from the office to the MD's house. Bridged networks are very much in use today, because its more cost effective than having a VSAT installation in all your office site. An organistion with a lot of branches in a state for example could use a Bridged network within that state. All they would need is the VSAT installation in there main main branch, then a radio link will be set up between the main office and the various locations. This means that every other location has to have a radio installed too. The organistation could now set up the wireless link between its main office and branch offices as a bridge, so that only radios in there network can associate with the access point in the main branch.
Now befor i left for my MD's place i called a Rigger. We got there and i started trouble shooting from inside the house. The radios we used in this wireless link are powered by POE's (Power Over Ethernet) adaptors. The POE, is a small device that powers wireless radios thorough the 4 unused wires in an etherenet cable. One end of the POE is connected to the lan, the other end goes straight to the wireless device. The POE is then powered with an adaptor. The advantage of POE is that one Ethernet cable connecting from the POE to a wireless radio can be used for both power and data. This removes the need for having a seperate power source for the radio.
After pinging the wireless radio a couple of times from the LAN inside my MD's home, i found out that the radio always freezes after a couple of minutes. When you restart the radio, by disconnecting it from the POE and conecting it back, i was able to ping the wireless radio in the house, and ping across to the radio in the office. After a couple of minutes, the link from the house to the office will start timeing out. When i first examined the POE, i found out that it was wet and there was water driping from the cable connecting the wirless radio on the mast. disconnecting the cable, i noticed that the pins that carried power to the radio were burnt. I just hope that this would not have caused a mojor damage to the radio.
I had to cut the cable between the POE and the radio short because the amount of water we found in the cable was not acceptable. We have a 40 metre ethernet cable running from the POE in the house to the wireless radio on the mast. It was suprising how water got into the cable and all the way to the POE. After recrimping the cable and running a couple of pings again, we decided that the radio on the mast had to be brought down, and the ethernet cable between the radio and the POE had to be changed.
The Rigger could not get acces to the radio, since the mast which it was on was being shared by my MD and the company next to him, and the security guard there did not let us in because his boss was not around to give him permission. We left MD's house and went back to the office to make sure everything was alright from that end. On getting to the office, the rigger climed up the mast, and on bringing the radio down, we found out that water some way found its way into the radio. During installation of the wireless radio, we never thought this would happen, because we thought these were outdoor equipments, and that they were made to resist to such conditions. Well maybe they were not made to withstand the kind of rain we experience in Nigeria.
After cleaning and sealing all teh edges of the radio, the rigger climed back and installed the radio on the office mast. We pinged the radio Wireless radio in the office, and everything seemd alright. We tried pinging across to the radio in MD's house, but to no avail. We scanned for other radios in the area, and we found a whole lot of other radios. So we concluded that from this end everything was ok and that the problem now must be from MD's side, since we did not have permission to bring down his radio. We were about leaving for his house when rain started falling. You know riggers cant work under that condition. We postponed the job till another day.
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