My goal was to send my internet connection to next point that is situated about 2Km from my location. I don’t have direct visibility ( the altitude difference is about 30m ), I tried in different modes to get an acceptable connection but permanently I had problems with connection lost. Accidentally I found a solution that works good, I told accidentally because I don’t have knowledge about radio communication, I just remember few things from physics lessons . ( For PDF version see the download link at the end of this article )

1. I bought two Mikrotik SXT ( exactly model: RBSXTG-5HPacD ) antennas with antenna gain 19dBi. ( Check out this video it contains installation guide )
2. On my house roof I have installed one metal pipe
3. At the point where I need to receive the internet connection also I have similar pipe and antenna installed
4. Next step we have to rotate antennas while we find a good signal ( in my case I have 2 stable lights indicators and sometimes third is blinking )
   
5. Without using the Hill for reflection I can’t get two stable light indicators. You can see in next pictures how I directed antennas.
   
6. After installation we have to do one more step – software configuration.

Wireless interface configuration

1. Download Winbox – http://www.mikrotik.com/download
2. With a WinBox window open for each device:
   • Click the Wireless button on the top left
   • You’ll notice interface “wlan1” is greyed out or dimmed – this means it’s currently disabled.
   • Right Click on the “wlan1” interface and click Enable in the drop down menu or click the Blue check button on the menu bar. You should see the the interface change to enabled.

   We’re going to make the one SXT our “AccessPoint” and second SXT our “Client”.

   Note there are a couple settings that you may want to change to something different once you’ve got everything setup. For example you may want to change the SSID to “MyAwesomeBackhaul”….it’s not necessary to get things connected so if this is your first time….don’t change anything unless I mention it (you could boink your link and be frustrated and throw your coffee cup and that wouldn’t be cool).

   Do the following on the SXT you’ve decided to be the Access Point. In our case it’s first SXT:

   AccessPoint Configuration
   

   • Double click on Wlan1.
   • Click the Wireless tab at the top
   • Click the Mode dropdown menu and change it to “Bridge”
   • Click the Band dropdown menu and change it to “5Ghz-only-N”
   • Click the Wireless Protocol dropdown and change it to “NV2”
   • Click the HT tab at the top
   • Select all 4 HT chain options
   • Press the Apply button on the top right.
3. Client Configuration 
   You should already have WinBox open and connected to the client or “Second SXT”.Now, without making any configuration changes, you should be able to see the AP when doing a scan. Lets go ahead an do that and use the connect button so that we’re sure the SSID’s match.
   • Double click on Wlan1
   • Click the Scan button on the right.
   • The AP should show up, if it doesn’t something isn’t right….Assuming it does, click on the SSID shown in the list and click the Connect Button then Close 
     
     By using the Scan and Connect method above, you’ve set the SSID on the client side to match the AP exactly. There are still several things to be changed before they actually connect though.You should be back at the wireless tab:
     Click the Mode dropdown menu and change it to “Station Bridge”
     Click the Band dropdown menu and change it to “5Ghz-only-N”
     Click the Wireless Protocol dropdown and change it to “Any” 
     • Click the HT tab at the top
     • Select all 4 HT chain options 
       Press the Apply button on the top right.You should see a “R” next to the wlan Interface in the Wireless Tables window now. This means the client is registered and connected! If you’re not getting a registration between the two devices or you’re having trouble with any of the above steps…write a comment – I’m here to help!

 

Setting up the Bridge

To setup the SXT to bridge network traffic do the following to each SXT:

• Click the Bridge button on the left
• Click the Plus button on the menu bar

• Click the STP tab at the top
• Change the “Protocol Mode:” to RSTP
• Click OK

Back at the Bridge window:

• Click the Ports tab at the top
• Click the Plus button on the menu bar
• What defaults in the “New Bridge Port” window is what you want, so click OK. This adds Ether1 to the bridge
• Click the Plus button on the menu bar again.
• Click the “Interface” drop down menu and select Wlan1
• Click Ok

Your Bridge window should look similar to this:

Congratulations you have finished the router setup.

Let’s test the connection speed

I’m not going to cover connecting networks between two SXTs – may be in another post – instead, we’ll make a few changes that will allow us to do a quick bandwidth test. These changes should get you on your way to connecting through the devices as well

First Change the IP address on our client bridge (right SXT) to something else besides 192.168.88.1.

• Click the IP button on the left then Addresses
• Double click on the default address – 192.168.88.1
• Change it to 192.168.88.2 (make sure to leave the /24 in there)
• Click OK

You should now be able to do a bandwidth test.

• WinBox Into the Access Point SXT (Still using the MAC Address Tool)
• Click the Tools button on the left then Bandwidth Test
• Change the “Test To:” field to the address of the client – 192.168.88.2
• Click the “User” field and enter admin for the username
• Click the Start button

Now if you were to test TCP traffic at this point – The results wouldn’t be as impressive. This is because you’re relying on the SXT’s to both process and create traffic. This causes a hit to the processor that slows everything down.

There are a lot of configurations that we can do to obtain a better performance. Once I get better results on my router I will write on this blog about this so I’m waiting on my blog on next posts.

You can download the PDF version.

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