[Berlin-wireless] New Set Up Engeldamm34

[Stefan Sperling]

On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 12:39:27PM +0000, graham barrett wrote:
> Hallo,
> 
> Apologies for my English but my German will really not suffice.
> 
> I recently set up a new Router  TP-Link TL-WR842ND, flashed and configured as suggested. I received my Mesh IPs & DHCP and followed everything as described again.
> 
> My result is the following – berlin.freifunk.net now appears with a full signal (it is certainly boosted from before) and my router can be viewed as a device with a .freifunk.net address (cn13 I believe)
> 
> My problem however is there appears to be no external connection. Which is to say – no internet. Further to this, though I set up my GPS co-ordinates, the modem does not appear on the Berlin WiFi Map either.
> 
> I guess I am just looking for some assistance as it appears I have missed one key detail of sorts. I am relatively tech savvy but quite the noob when it comes to network set up. Any pointers and assistance would be massively appreciated. Particularly since we have a big balcony and I am very happy to put an antenna out there sometime!
> 
> Thanks in advance to the community J
> 
> Graham

Hi Graham,

if I've guessed your location correctly, the closest neighbour node
near you seems to be at Georg von Rauch Haus.
This node doesn't seem to be configured for meshing on wireless. It is
connected to the curch at Lausitzer Platz for its uplink but just acts
as an access point for local clients so your router doesn't see it as
a potential mesh peer. For giggles you could try reconfiguring your
TL-WR842ND as a wireless client for their network (network name
freifunk-rauchhaus or freifunk-rauchhaus-5ghz) and see whether it
can already make a connection that way.

You could try getting in touch with them and discuss how to set up
a permanent link from your balcony to there. Perhaps they'll need
additional hardware at their end to support this. It's also possible
that your TL-WR842ND won't provide a good link at this distance since
directional antennas are suited better for long-shot connections like this.
That's not to say the TL-WR842ND is useless, you'll definitely want
to keep it as your local mesh node. But it may need some help from,
say, a nanostation m2/m5 or similar device.
You should have clear line of sight to Georg from Rauch Haus for
best results. From the map it doesn't look like there's buildings
in the way, but perhaps there are some trees?

I've put the contact address for Georg von Rauch Haus in Cc.

Perhaps you could also try connecting to the curch at Lausitzer Platz
from your balcony? You'll need a device with directional antenna for that.
Look for names such as 'emma-wnw-2ghz' or 'emma-wnw-5ghz' in a wireless scan.

Good luck,
Stefan