Let us help you identify that mysterious object you’ve found.
Currently in CHALLENGE mode: If you've got something obscure knocking about, post a picture, and let's see how we do. Please prefix such posts with "CHALLENGE:" so we know we've got a fighting chance.
They started installing poles along a main road near where we live and I’m not sure what the white antennas on them are for. Some of the poles have traffic cameras like the one in the picture but others don’t. They are spaced every half to one mile and have antennas on opposite sides, with what looks like a radio cabinet near the base. The antennas are all aligned along the road, pointing parallel to traffic. This is in southwest Pennsylvania.
Point to point wireless network link: https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-wireless/products/af-24
As for what it's for, it could be anything. Possibly just for the camera that's also on that pole?
As for what it's for, it could be anything.
I'm pretty sure that's what Bill Gates will be using to activate the 5G nanobots that we all received in the COVID vaccine.
We were all supposed to die by late 2020. What’s taking so long?
~~6 months~~
~~1 year~~
~~2~~ ~~3~~ ~~4~~ SOON!
Aah, the classic Soon™. The gaming industry has taught you well.
They forgot to put out all the antennas, and you know how slow big infrastructure projects can be.
They said that people would start dying like flies in no time. Why do I care? You see, currently houses and cars are so expensive, because there are many people who also want to buy those things. If the population was cut to a fraction, as was promised, the prices would crash accordingly due to massive oversupply of everything. I’m still waiting for the day when I can buy a house with 1000 €.
Nanomachine, son.
Source: military.
That indeed looks like exactly what they are, which I should have known since I have a bunch of UniFi gear at home. I wonder what PennDOT is using them for.
Those airfibers are massive fucking overkill for a single camera. I’ve aligned pairs of these that feed entire like 10-25 unit MDUs.
if they are chaining them bandwidth will add up, and depending on the switching equipment they could be doing a large ring of some sort. it would be pretty easy to calculate since cameras are a pretty even throughput.
Looks like a air fiber 24 which is only 1.5Gbps throughput, 8-24mbps per camera would mean between 60-200 cameras, which for a state transportation department wouldn't be unreasonable, especially they are using these for something else, like interconnects between buildings for a metro-lan scenario.
It looks like a point-to-point relay. There appears to be two different sized dish antennas on each antenna “pod” which would indicate two different frequencies are in use. I’m sure it’s the method they’re using to transmit the camera feed back to a landline connection. The poles without a camera are probably just a relay to get the signal down the next hop in the chain, or maybe there is some other sort of sensor data being collected at those points.
Looking at the UniFi stats azdle posted the dishes in the pod are separate send and receive dishes. The size denotes the dbi gain.
big ol ubiquiti mesh network. many towns are covered in them. iirc ubiquiti made a name for themselves doing wireless in stadiums.. had some solid firewalls/routers
the new stuff is pretty at least
Point to point and point to multipoint are not the same as a mesh network.
right, one is just a small piece of the others infrastructure.
No bro. A mesh network is a bunch of access points that repeat each others signals. This is like a single cable, but using RF. It is not an access point.
So, more like a token ring? And mesh would be like Ethernet?
I wonder how resilient the system is... It would seem like all it would take is one pole being tilted by high winds, or a car wreck to take down the entire network.
Token ring != Tolkien ring. Tolkien rings are much more reliable than token rings, as long as you manage your hobbit infestations.
This is the wireless equivalent of a single Ethernet cable. if you follow each of the dish pairs in a roughly straight line, you will hit another transceiver. This pole would be middle three nodes of this:
(Air Fiber) <-------> (Air Fiber) (switch) (Air Fiber) <--------> (Air Fiber)
Camera could also be plugged into the switch.
And yes, if a car impacts the pole, you lose that point to point link. Hope you got a failover plan or another set of air fibers that take a different path.
Yup, that is a wireless token ring.
I get how much cheaper it would be to install, but the maintenance has to be outrageous. But I guess ongoing costs are easier for them to budget.
It is not using token ring protocol. It is a wireless implementation of the Ethernet protocol. I don’t think you fully understand what token ring is, or we’re not doing a good job of explaining what a point-to-point radio is.
I wasn't talking about the protocol, I was talking about the topography. Each station is dependent upon the station before it. So much like an old fashioned string of Christmas lights, if one bulb dies the whole string goes dark.
Sure. And if you ran an Ethernet cable between each station, they’re still dependent on the station before it. What point are you trying to make?
Then you would still have a token ring configuration, because that is not home Ethernet works.
Although you wouldn't have to worry as much about high winds, so it would have some advantages, but I still wouldn't recommend it.
Yeah, router on a stick is definitely not how anyone sets up home Ethernet.
Idk why you’re even mentioning home Ethernet. Most people I know don’t have cameras on electrical poles connected by airFibers inside their homes, that’s solidly enterprise shit.
I’ve aligned in the high hundreds, if not low thousands, of pairs of these exact model of radio in my career. I’ve aligned hundreds of Siklu’s that shoot 10Gbs duplex over 2.5-3 fucking miles. Please tell me more about how the wireless backhaul wasn’t Ethernet but was actually token ring.
Wind doesn’t make a bit of difference unless you don’t know what you’re doing and you half assed your job, although rain will for sure fuck you. I’m starting to think you’re just repeating things you’ve heard instead of talking about something you have a thorough understanding of.
Ahhh, I get it now. You are very knowledgeable in one fringe aspect of networking, so that makes you an expert in all things network related.
I'm sorry dude, normally I am down for a pedantic argument about nonsense with a self proclaimed expert, but I just don't have the bandwidth this week. Maybe next time.
I mean I’ve got my CCIE so I wouldn’t say that I’m only knowledgeable in one single fringe area, but go off anyway.
I know in the network and IT nerd arguments that you like to drag out the alphabet certs to wow each other with your, "I'm so smart" mic drops, but you should really lead with CCIE next time. And THEN follow up with the amount of on hands experience as your big finish rather than doing it the other way around. The problem is that laymen are going to look at the CCIE and think "wow you got a certificate, whooptydoo". Most people are going to be much more impressed with the thousands of hours of experience over a certificate. I mean, you are already battling hard against the whole extreme pedantry, "douche bag dropping into a laymen's conversation to brag about how much he knows and schooling everyone on how they are using the terms wrong" thing you are trying to do, so if you are going to try to impress us with how smart you are, you gotta cater to your audience better.
Fuck dude, I guess I hit a nerve there. I’m sorry I angered you so much.
Did that seem excessively rough? I got a bit of a stomach bug that gave me the ass squirts all morning, so I had a little too much time to myself while on the shitter. Sorry if I went too hard, I was actually just trying to razz you a bit.
But for real man, lead with the alphabet soup first, then follow with the experience. To anyone without a technical background, a cert just means your company paid for you to go to Vegas and spend a week at a luxury hotel.
Forgive my ignorance in that case. I did very poorly on the unit that covered token ring, and was in perpetual self doubt because I got an answer wrong when I referenced the original manufacturer document instead of the slides.
Nothing against the protocol, I just didn't learn it properly and was born too late to see it in person. (I love learning about all tech)
Be glad you never had to suffer through the hell that is token ring. And given how awful it truly is, I am surprised that they have decided to recreate it wirelessly. I understand why (the why is money, it's always money) but you would have thought they would have learned their lesson.
Could be that tracking technology for gun shots.