New Node at Government Polytechnic College, Kangra

Other then providing connectivity to Kangara Polytechnic, this site will serve as a RF reference point for testing and measurement of new routers and radios. Observant readers must have noticed the two horizontally polarized semi-parabolic grid antennas on the same mast. Both aimed at same direction (towards Upper Dharamsala). One of these antennas serves as the backhaul link from our TCV center (from the roof of the House Of Peace) to Kangara, based on two Linksys WRT54GL routers on each side. The other antenna is to be used as a reference and fixed measurement point. It is our intention to test every new router, before being deployed in the field, by aiming it to this reference site and measuring the signal strength. This will enable us to have a relative reference for measurements and to ensure each radio emits the expected energy, without any unknown and otherwise hard to measure losses on cables, connectors, etc.
The other reference antenna for testing new equipment is conveniently installed on my balcony 16km away, under a roof at an easy to access location. In addition to these two antennas - an Omni directional antenna is installed at the top of the Kangara mast, which serve as local HotSpot for the Kangara students and staff to access the Internet. Other then the Linksys WRT54GL which serves as the backhaul - the reference antenna is connected to an Senao/EnGenius NL-2511 200mw Mini-PCI radio (prism 2.5 chipset) as well as the Omni antennas which is connected to additional NL-2511 radio. Both Mini-PCI radios are housed on a WRAP 2C board, by the Swiss Pc-Engins the board runs a custom-made Linux distro and the HotSpot is based on a port of ChilliSpot.
Both Linksys and WRAP routers are housed inside the same weather-proof enclosure which we designed here in Dharamsala. This is "fat" version which allows multiple routers to be installed inside the same enclosure, both are fed by the same PoE feed.