Wireless Bridge Test

[aidan]

I have been making my own wireless IP camera for the last while.

I have 2 of these https://www.engeniustech.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ENS202_Datasheet_O.pdf one is in the shed connected to the camera and one is in the kitchen and is connected back to the router

and one of these https://www.hikvision.com/UploadFile/image/2013030316560263189.pdf

It runs perfectly most of the time, however sometimes it seems to get a bit sluggish and I see the timestamp on the camera image pausing for 5-10seconds and away we go again, & as I type here the whole lot just went offline. It dropped out at the shed end for some reason too as I cant restart from the comfort of the living room.

Thus I was wondering is there a way of doing a speed test or evaluate for quality on this wireless bridge.

Ping test results look good 5ms

Even though I have a color camera my picture is a bit grey..............maybe its because its one of the lower grade of camera, however when focusing, when someone was up close to the camera v clear and colorful picture

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Yeah that bridge runs in plain 2.4 GHz band, so standard WiFi frequency, which is shared with lots of other stuff, so can be very “noisy” radio wise - so could have some radio interference, spurious noise from motors, lights or other sources, that could be interrupting stuff at random times.

I don’t use Engenius stuff myself, prefer to use Ubiquiti, so I’m not au fait with their web interface, but hopefully you may have a basic link “quality” measure shown on a web login to either device, which could help diagnose the fault.

 

[aidan]

Thanks for comments

When you login you can see link status which is currently up, I don’t think there is anything for link quality,

My camera must have dropped out at random tonight, Will look tomorrow

I read some bad stuff about Ubuntu’s stuff hence I went engenius

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Does the bridge pair automatically find/suggest its own WiFi channel? If not can you manually override/set it try another channel

 

[aidan]

Does the bridge pair automatically find/suggest its own WiFi channel? If not can you manually override/set it try another channel

Yes I do have that option

What actually are channels

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Yes I do have that option

What actually are channels

WiFi operates across a range of unlicensed frequencies that are allocated in one of the so called Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) bands of radio frequencies. As it’s unlicensed/free there are loads of other gear that use the ISM band, especially @ 2.4 GHz, like wireless baby monitors, even microwave ovens can emit garbage in this range. It’s quite noisy and congested.

For WiFi @ 2.4 GHz (802.11 b, g and n) the band is divided into smaller ranges of frequencies, called channels, some of which do and don’t overlap. There are 11 channels in total, only 3 of which don’t overlap.

For WiFi which operates at 5GHz (802.11ac and some 802.11n) there are far more channels to choose from, 23 in total and it’s less crowded with other shite but because your operating at a higher frequency than 2.4 GHz the range is slightly less.

There’s even less chance of noise and crap using 60 GHz WiFi (802.11ad) but there’s only some gear which use it.

 

[upnortheast]

We have Enginius202 & 202ext kit for wireless bridge.
In the wireless setting improved performance by changing from 20 mhz to 40.
It was also prone to freezing every couple of days. Found in the settings it would reboot at a set time. Set that to 24 hours Been fine since then
HTH

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

We have Enginius202 & 202ext kit for wireless bridge.
In the wireless setting improved performance by changing from 20 mhz to 40.
It was also prone to freezing every couple of days. Found in the settings it would reboot at a set time. Set that to 24 hours Been fine since then
HTH

So does your link do a managed/timed reset every 24 hours?

 

[upnortheast]

So does your link do a managed/timed reset every 24 hours?

Yep
In the settings there is "Auto reboot settings" which allows the frequency to be set to whatever you want

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

I’ve got a few Panasonic PTZ cameras about the place, which I’ve had for years, one of which is a stubborn son of a biatch and needs to have a timed reboot otherwise it freezes and becomes non-responsive. The others are all tip top. Go figure eh.

 

[aidan]

We have Enginius202 & 202ext kit for wireless bridge.
In the wireless setting improved performance by changing from 20 mhz to 40.
It was also prone to freezing every couple of days. Found in the settings it would reboot at a set time. Set that to 24 hours Been fine since then
HTH

I’m actually on 40

 

[aidan]

Figured out how to do the speed test this morning is 10mbits/s a good reading

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Figured out how to do the speed test this morning is 10mbits/s a good reading

Sounds *really* slow. What sort of distance is the link?

 

[upnortheast]

What is your broadband speed at the router ?
Has the unit in the kitchen got direct line of sight to the shed unit ?
If not that would knock your speed

 

[aidan]

Sounds *really* slow. What sort of distance is the link?

200m link

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

200m link

It's not a mega distance. Are both radios solidly mounted and aimed well? Nothing blocking line of sight?

It's important to get the throughput of the link greater than 10Mbps, that's way too slow and if there is any interference its probably dropping way lower than that, hence the camera drops.

 

[aidan]

Standing at the midpoint here, zoom in and can see my transmitter overhead the long shed

 

[aidan]

Just thinking out loud

One receiver is located in the kitchen window

Speed with receiver outside the window is 9mbs
Speed with receiver inside is 5-6mbs

Is it essential that the receiver at the shed would be pointed correctly to within 1 degree accuracy or would 15 degree accuracy sufffice

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Just thinking out loud

One receiver is located in the kitchen window

Speed with receiver outside the window is 9mbs
Speed with receiver inside is 5-6mbs

Is it essential that the receiver at the shed would be pointed correctly to within 1 degree accuracy or would 15 degree accuracy sufffice

You'll be miles out at 15 degrees off centre at 200 metres, it will still work, but will be "sub-optimal" as the yanks would say.

Really you want both units mounted externally, nothing in the way or in between, and directly facing each other aimed as accurately as possible

 

[upnortheast]

I have ours mounted outside the window, Just drilled a little hole in the corner of the window frame to bring the cat5 cable back in made a noticable difference.
Think those Engenius units have a reasonable angle of use. Will check the spec sheet Clear line of sight is more important