Italian Cisar Radio Amateur WiFi Network Overview: CisarNet
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Abstract
The National Digital Link Cisar CisarNet (http://wifi.cisar.it), is an ambitious project that is joining much of the italian region via a backbone digital technology wifi connections to 2.4 and 5.7 GHz, which allows experimentation for radio amateur and any use if needed in an emergency to coordinate and support relief efforts. In addition to the National Voice Link is one of the main resources that the association Cisar gives available to the Department of Civil Protection, through the association RNRE (Group National Emergency Communications), a member of the National Volunteer and which is Cisar one of the founder members. Complete Guide Line documentation (in Italian) could be found on the Cisar RadioWiki pages at (http://www.cisar.it/radiowiki/index.php?title=Linee_Guida_piano_di_indirizzamento_IP_e_gestione)
History and Awards
The National Digital Link started by a group led by Giorgio Pagan, IW3IBG, after the first positive experiments to connect WiFi devices to long range distances. The base of the Giorgio's idea was to emulate the same concepts as the older National Voice Link (analog) project, based on UHF technology, to connect several repeaters and permit to have a wireless coverage of all the national territory. An important target was aimed in the June of 2007, when the group led by Paolo Presenti IK0PCJ connected Amiata mount in Tuscany to Limbara mount in Sardinia; in this way, they deserved the world record of radio amateur permanent wireless link of 304 Km at 5.7 Ghz with handmade aerials. You can find more information (in italian) about the wireless distance record at (http://www.cisar.it/images/BollettiniTecnici/BollettinoTecnicoCisar-06-2007.pdf)
Wireless Technology
2.4 Ghz devices
5.7 Ghz devices
System Infrastructure
Differently from other experiences, the CISAR group tried to establish a whole infrastructure, made by not only wireless links, but management and monitoring services, to guarrantee the right level of quality and availability. On the top of this infrastructure, CISAR are activating several services, from voice and video over IP, to DSTAR support, to conferencing systems. The activation of the dynamic routing protocol OSPF (Open Shortest Path First), has permitted to obtain an high level of overall availability, to candidate the Cisar Digital Network to be the natural solution for digital communication in emergency situations.
CisarNet connection policy
The above infrastructure permit to any radio amateurs to connect to the CISAR Digital Networks, without require any kind of credentials or digital signature. This kind of "guest" access is totally free, fully automatic, broadcasting wireless SSID, assigning DHCP IP address, DNS server IP address with DDNS record update, and easy to try. On the other hand, the installations fully compliant with the Guide Line, became integrating part of the backbone of the CisarNet.
Published services
THe most used service published via CisarNet infrastructure is the live map monitoring, that you can find at http://wifi.cisar.it/, where via Google Map ave been published the real time status of all the devices being part of the CISAR Digital Network. On the same web page, you could find the Link to the LogView application, giving the possibility to everyone to check the log messages of all devices, to permit a first level of debugging and checking. This kind of services are accessible from Internet too, and other published services are available only from inside CisarNet. The lastone added service is about Voice over IP project, based on Asterisk/Askotia server, that permit you to monitor the presence status of all VoIP hardware devices, including softphone (most common is 3Cx SIP client software).
IP Addressing Plan
CisarNet as private network mapped to 10.0.0.0/8 IP addresses
CisarNet and supported networks 44.0.0.0/8 of ampr.org
CisarNet and Internet
CisarNet, ampr.org and other project's networks interfacing
Interfacing CisarNet to ampr.org
Interfacing CisarNet to other project's networks
Who's CISAR Association (brief)
The Cisar Association (Italian Center for Radio Amateurs Experimentation, http://www.cisar.it), founded in Rome in 1981, is one of the main Italian associations that attract thousands of amateur members throughout the country, with about 50 sections. The president of CISAR Association is Giuseppe Misuri (IW5CGM) of Arezzo, while the headquarters of the association is in Mestre (Venice). It is known in Italy and abroad mainly for two important projects, the National Voice Link and the National Digital Link, which allow you to connect simultaneously to Amateur Radio over most of the country, with a backbone radio links in UHF (430 Mhz) and WiFi Access (2.4 and 5.7 Ghz) which crosses the peninsula and that it can be used with simple hand-held radio devices also. Important Experimentation has been conducted with emerging radio amateur technology DSTAR. All these systems are useful for testing their normal activities of amateur radio operators, have proven crucial in the management of relief activities in an emergency situation.
