Question why is the Bullet only able to transmit via selection on 5745, 5765, 5785, 5805, 5825 and not on the part 97 only frequencies that are available. We would like to do this when creating our Back Bone Network to reduce clutter.

Can we modify the firmware ourselves to allow for this?

Thank you,

Marcus

We share this band with WIFI and HAM.  There are no channels on 802.11 that fall within ham only band. The international version devices actually go lower and out of the USA ham band.

Why the current channels? If you check the spec sheet the US version hardware are only rated 5725 MHz to 5850 MHz. These are the only devices we have board.info files for in many case. Since these units are only for channels in this range that is what the selection is. The international model can go lower but even that is still shared with part 15 users in the USA (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-NII)

This is the same discussion as "channel 0" on 2.4ghz.  To my knowledge the goals of the project are to get us hardware that works before looking at trying to force the gear to do tasks it wasn't designed for.

I don't believe the response concerning the design frequency range is completely accurate. The spec sheet states the frequency range is 5170 to 5825 Mhz with a footnote that the states 5725 to 5825 Mhz is supported in the United States.  Consequently the frequency limitation exists only in firmware, not in the hardware, as has been confirmed in my conversations with Ubiquity tech support. There is no limitation to the use of 802.11 protocol pursuant to Part 97 rules, except that encryption would not be permitted. 

In my communications with Ubiquity they didn't assert that the devices would not operate across the specified band, but only that as a matter of policy they were not marketing equipment capable of operating outside the ISM band in the U.S. and applied the limitation in firmware.   

If we can modify the firmware to allow operation within the Part 97 band, we would have access to a commercial site so long as we use channels outside the ISM band, i.e, Part 97 spectrum that would allow four 20 Mhz wide channels.  How much better it would be to operate in spectrum without contention from unlicensed ISM band users and still be within the design range of the product,and without the ERP limitations application to the ISM spectrum. 

Does anyone know how to modify the WRT portion of the firmware to allow the extended frequency range?  Of it anyone has a conclusion different than I've expressed, I would appreciate other viewpoints. 

Well  if they actually did calibrate them out of the USA band and they only made a tagging change between the USA and INTL version to signal the permmited band then that is some good news I didn't know about, and then yes this could open up some more channels.

If you want to test it  OpenWRT describes how to change RF channels, and our code for the UI is in the repo to review.

I will note that the channels in question will NOT be contention free.  ISM is not the same thing as Part 15.   ISM band may stop at 5725 but Part 15 use of 802.11 is permitted below 5725 in the USA (U-NII 2C band) This is also the RADAR band. 

You will need to be careful to check with local government in this band before usage (I'm all for opening it up though if we have people without government using it and hardware supports it) 

Details:

The U-NII-2C band is allocated on a primary basis to the Radiolocation Service for Federal operation. The sub-band at 5.47-5.65 GHz band is allocated on a primary basis to the
Radiolocation Service for non-Federal operation, and on a primary basis to the Maritime Radionavigation
Service for both Federal and non-Federal operations. The 5.47-5.570 GHz band segment is allocated on a primary basis to the Earth Exploration-Satellite (active) and Space Research (active) Services for Federal operation and on the secondary basis for non-Federal operation. The 5.6-5.65 GHz band segment is allocated on a primary basis to the Meteorological Aids Service for both Federal and non-Federal operations. The band segment at 5.65-5.725 GHz is allocated on a secondary basis to the Amateur Radio Service for non-Federal operation.

Again that said though, if the hardware supports it I wouldn't personally mind seeing the channels to be listed,  they just still come with a STRONG warning about checking for local radar facilities, this band is known to be actively used for government radar in this subband.

I don't have time to test lab them myself at this time as I'm working bigger tickets right now your welcome to test away.  Make sure to do long distance tests to be sure they actually work in the field.