There are a range of situations where running a cable from Point A to Point B is not possible typically due to physical constraints or cost. With a transparent wireless bridge you can link buildings across a street without digging up the road, connect a cowshed 2km's away from your house or even connect a remote camera to your network wirelessly and it will be as if they were simply plugged in using an Ethernet cable.


In this blog we will show you how to configure a transparent Ubiquiti Point to Point bridge in AirOS 8 using a pair of the Nanostation Loco5ac. This same configuration can be used for any of the AirMAX AC products (NanoBeam AC, PowerBeam AC, PowerBeam AC Iso, LiteBeam AC, IsoStation AC, PrismStation AC, Rocket Prism AC and Rocket AC series).


Note:

This article assumes you know how to login to a Ubiquiti radio. If this is not the case please refer to "Logging in to a Ubiquiti Wireless Access Point or Router".


Instructions

  1. Connect the first Ubiquiti outdoor radio into your network/pc and power it on.

  2. Login to the outdoor radio selecting your country, accepting terms and creating a password:


  3. Under the Wireless tab, configure the device for Access Point and PTP mode, enter an SSID and WPA2 Preshared Key before applying changes:

    Important:

    The SSID & WPA Preshared Key settings are an example and should be customised to secure your network. Channel Width and Center Frequency, MHz can also be adjusted to suit your application and environment - be aware though that these changes must be matched on the second unit (Station).

  4. Configure the network settings and apply changes:

  5. Unplug the outdoor radio and relocate it a few metres away, then power it back up with the network disconnected (power only).

  6. Connect the second outdoor radio to your network/pc and power it on.

  7. Login and configure the second radio for PTP Mode and the click the Select… button:

  8. Locate and select the previously configured radio that is broadcasting your SSID (in this example it is ‘my_wds_bridge’ and then click Select:

  9. Enter your WPA2 Preshared Key and click save changes:

  10. Configure the network settings for the station and apply changes:

  11. Once the settings have been applied, go to the dashboard of the device and wait a few minutes for it to connect to the access point you configured in the first steps. Once connected, you will see the remote device section populated:

  12. If you want to create a multipoint network you will need to disable PTP Mode on all devices.
    Access Point:

    Stations:




For more information on aligning and bandwidth testing your Ubiquiti Point to Point bridge please view this article Optimising your wireless link.