My 4G setup/project

[ciarlill]

I am about to begin the journey of setting up my own installation and had a few questions for you:

1. Did you terminate all the cables yourself to get the minimum possible length?
2. Why did you go from LMR-200 to LMR-400 instead of just using LMR-400 for everything?
3. Can you explain how the ubiquiti grounding block is used in this setup? I can't tell from the pictures but it looks like one line coming out of it also goes up to the antennas?

I think those are the main points for now. I need to find a good place to order LMR400/200 cable, and N-type connectors and the crimping tool. If you have any suggestions on shops or specific tools please let me knoow. Thanks

[poodad]

Wow! I've been trying for days to make sense of all the LTE gumbo since I started down this rabbit hole a few days ago. Your thread is master's thesis worth of material. Thank you so much for sharing! I've been looking for a tried and true rural setup, and your's fits the bill perfectly (except I'm going to use broadband log periodical antennas because I already have them).

So, just to be sure I understand your setup, your modem/rpi/GoldenOrb combo runs in passthrough (what I as a network guy would call bridge mode). That then connects the outside interface of your pfsense box, which IIRC is running on netgate hardware. Is this correct?

How do you get into your rpi? Can you assign it something like a 192.168.x.x IP on the ethernet interface, and then use a static route on pfsense to get to it? Or does GoldenOrb just "snatch" admin ports like http and ssh from the public IP?

Or do you use VLANs - one for the passthrough and one for management?

Can you get radio stats out of GoldenOrb via SNMP?

[swwifty]

Wow! I've been trying for days to make sense of all the LTE gumbo since I started down this rabbit hole a few days ago. Your thread is master's thesis worth of material. Thank you so much for sharing! I've been looking for a tried and true rural setup, and your's fits the bill perfectly (except I'm going to use broadband log periodical antennas because I already have them).

So, just to be sure I understand your setup, your modem/rpi/GoldenOrb combo runs in passthrough (what I as a network guy would call bridge mode). That then connects the outside interface of your pfsense box, which IIRC is running on netgate hardware. Is this correct?

How do you get into your rpi? Can you assign it something like a 192.168.x.x IP on the ethernet interface, and then use a static route on pfsense to get to it? Or does GoldenOrb just "snatch" admin ports like http and ssh from the public IP?

Or do you use VLANs - one for the passthrough and one for management?

Can you get radio stats out of GoldenOrb via SNMP?

Sorry for the delay on responding to this.

I have the PI running GoldenOrb in NAT mode actually. I wish I didn't have to do that, but there is no way to do a bridge with the PI, unless I build my own version of OpenWRT. I just haven't had issues with it, so I haven't bothered.

Because of this I can still easily access it, and yes the pfSense / netgate hardware is connected to it directly. Not any different than another ISP internet connection.

I'm not using any VLANs for this, and I'm not aware of any radio stats available via SNMP from GoldenOrb. Doesn't mean its not possible though.

Hope that helps.

[swwifty]

I am about to begin the journey of setting up my own installation and had a few questions for you:

1. Did you terminate all the cables yourself to get the minimum possible length?
2. Why did you go from LMR-200 to LMR-400 instead of just using LMR-400 for everything?
3. Can you explain how the ubiquiti grounding block is used in this setup? I can't tell from the pictures but it looks like one line coming out of it also goes up to the antennas?

I think those are the main points for now. I need to find a good place to order LMR400/200 cable, and N-type connectors and the crimping tool. If you have any suggestions on shops or specific tools please let me knoow. Thanks

Sorry just saw this as well.

I did not terminate them myself. I bought them at the length I needed, but now that I know how to build my own cables I probably would. There is a step learning curve to that, so just buy new already terminated if you can.

I had the ubiquiti grounding block for my Ubiquiti radio, it's not used for any of the 4G equipment.

[Loudbinary]

SliverGT, first thanks for taking your time and spending your money on this write up. It will save me both in affixing creating my permanent LTE home setup.

Question though, regarding your PFSense implementation. Having been in rural America now for years, I've have quite a bit of experience with these load balancing setup and that software is one of the more robust. Yet one plaguing problem for my house, as i'm actually in same general setup Golden orb at the edge with my modem and Pfsense for managing traffic and such.

The question.

Where is natting being done? Both devices? Or are you bridging Golden Orb back to the pfsense to let it manage. Are you, if necessary, managing Inbound firewall rules on both devices or one?

Again, thanks for all the information.

[Loudbinary]

swwifty, thanks for taking your time and money for these write ups.

Question regarding PFSense implementation. Where it nat happening? Are you somehow bridging over Goldenorb to PFSense? I've not been able to get that configuration working correctly yet. Or are you natting on both devices?

[BillA]

swwifty, thanks for taking your time and money for these write ups.

Question regarding PFSense implementation. Where it nat happening? Are you somehow bridging over Goldenorb to PFSense? I've not been able to get that configuration working correctly yet. Or are you natting on both devices?

Ideally you dont want double NATing because it can cause routing issues. You need to set the router to bypass mode by disabling DHCP and enable DMZ. Here's how to do it:
https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?p=15956#p15956