Wireless Internet Access using Ubiquiti Bullet2-HP

[THATBOATGUY]

I received our Bullet and a POE coupling today. I'll be playing with the unit down on the boat tomorrow probably. The antenna I bought here is only 7dbi but I was getting nearly as strong a signal with it here at the house as I was with the directional Yagi! I don't think this says much about the Yagi or we can just chock it up to one of those weird things. It will be interesting to see how it does in the same location with the Bullet running high power as the WRT-54G does running at 70mw (our normal setting).

George

[GeoffSchultz]

Be forewarned...my Bullet was dead when I got down to the boat. It's been raining non-stop since I installed it, but there was condensation/water inside of the unit. I had read other complaints about this and was planning on sealing the antenna coupler with heat-shrink tubing, but I guess that I was too late. I'm quite surprised as the unit externally appears to be well sealed.

-- Geoff

[GeoffSchultz]

I'm happy to report that I was able to revive the unit by removing it from the housing, drying it with heat and then rinsing it with electronics cleaner. I'm still confused as to how water got into it, as it appears to be well sealed.

-- Geoff

[THATBOATGUY]

Thanks,

I agree, there is a red rubber seal inside the antenna coupler that *should* make a water tight seal.

Just a FYI, when installing track vision units we came to understand that dielectric grease is not invisible to RF. It seems like a logical choice for waterproofing antenna connections but it's not. You may have already known that but I put it out as a part of the record here for others. Looking at the unit yesterday I had the same thought about heat shrinking the antenna connection and I think that some self amalgamating tape might be needed as well as the heat shrink... not too sure about that. I might heat shrink and then run a bead of ultrablack around the bottom of it.

George

[Rick Simonds]

Guys, I’ve been following this timely thread with great interest. I bought one of these units about a month ago but I haven’t installed it on the boat yet.

Just to be sure: y’all are talking about a leak at the Bullet/antenna end, not the cable end, right? I’m planning on a dab of silicone grease on the threads then some self amalgamating tape over all of it.

Looking at the installation, one mounting idea is to mount the antenna pointed down instead of up. Trying it at home there doesn’t seem to be a difference in signal strength. I haven’t decided about it yet but any reason I can’t do this?

Thanks for any help!

[THATBOATGUY]

I would absolutely *not* invert. For one thing most omni antennas are designed to create a slight upward shoot to the signal. Inverting would send your signal into the water in a circle around the boat. Also the unit is designed to be weather proof installed in an upward direction. I would avoid silicone grease as it can conduct RF.

I've started playing with mine today, I'll report back soon.

George

[THATBOATGUY]

Using it at the moment. I must say my initial reaction is awe. This absolutely hands down beats anything I've used to date. I will probably order a second one for back up and go ahead and pay the $20 to get DD-WRT license for it so that I can use it in repeater mode on board.

Woof! This thing rocks!

And thanks again for the tip on the Nano instructions Geoff, that saved me a good bit of time. Just have to ignore the information about built in antenna and a few other minor differences. Anything not mentioned in the Nano guide was simply left in default mode and that worked perfectly.

George

[GeoffSchultz]

George,

I don't understand your comment on purchasing DD-WRT. It's free for private use.

Also, what's your concern with using dielectric grease on the antenna connection? I spent a fair amount of time this morning searching the web for "dielectric grease rf" and found it suggested over and over for radio connections. No mention of it "blocking rf". It doesn't conduct electricity, but there should be a good physical connection between the threads of the connectors.

I plan to use dielectric grease on the antenna threads, heat shrink it and then use self amalgamating tape over that. (Belts and suspenders here.) Then I'll place some silicon on the bottom threads and finally place silicon around the cable entrance.

Yesterday I connected to my marinas network which is 5.3 miles away with land in between! Note that it wasn't a good connection, but I was amazed that I could see it and actually connect. I'm now connected to an open Linksys router which is probably a couple of miles away.

-- Geoff

[THATBOATGUY]

Hey Geoff,

The version of DD-WRT that is specific to the Bullet 2 needs an unlock and was $20 last time I checked. I'll go look at the compatibility again and see if they changed it but that's where it stood a couple months ago.

The dielectric grease issue came up when we were installing track visions and using it at the connections to the LNB's up in the dome. We got failures and the only thing that made a difference was removing the grease... If you try it and it works on the antenna connection then great! It might be freq specific or it could have been just some weird ju-ju. And the funny thing is the Net is full of people saying you *must* use dielectric grease at the LNB connections...

I've been playing around with the antenna trying to decide a good mounting place on the boat. I've been hoisting it on halyards between the masts (basically using a spare halyard to hoist it tracking up my topping lift for the main) and using the "antenna orientation" tool to keep an eye on the signal power. Nice little tool that. I might get the yaggi down there and also use that tool to figure out who's who in WIFI along the shoreline. I need to get a legitimate connection to one of the houses for our dock cameras to go live on the internet.

George

[THATBOATGUY]

Here it is, they call it an "Activation".

George