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Hello everyone,
I just thought I say hi from Houston,TX. Good to see some people interested in mesh networking ...
Personally, I think it's a great technology and my only wish is that there would be more people taking up this up this activity and set up more nodes around USA :) ... I'm a fairly technical person, so the technology is far from scary (yes it has bugs, but nothing that you can't work around) ... I've currently setup 2 nodes (K5DDE-001, K5DDE-002) here at my place, and I've placed K5DDE-001 which is a mesh-gateway on the net. If you're bored, feel free to take a look at it ( http://k5dde.wctek.com:8080 - K5DDE-002 will go up/down since this is the node where I test all the Amps/Antennas, so if it's there one day and gone the next, than it's only because I physically pulled it down to make mods to it). I've also ordered some 1W and 8W 2.4Ghz amps which I will be testing next week and a few different aerials. My goal here is to create a turn-key nodes/repeaters self contained and easy to deploy. I intend to use a solar-panel and rechargeable battery with solar tracker (super-easy which I just finished building) so that it can be deployed to locations with and/or without power access. The target of this exercise is to have an easy to deploy 5-mile+ range repeater (we'll see how it goes once the amps are in) while keeping it affordable so that it can be replicated easily by everyone.
In order to expand the Houston mesh, I plan to contact various organizations (schools, fire departments etc) to introduce the technology with its benefits and help them to setup a node at their location. I will provide free training and value-added mesh content for both emergency and learning purposes (web/ftp/video/voice/aprs/remote control/etc).
The hope is that if it's well documented, easy to understand and easy to deploy and as turn-key as possible the technology will be adopted by more people. Especially if it's cheap and fast :)
Right now, for the mesh device itself, I have a mixture of 54GL with BBHN 1.0, but I am also working (just about finished) on a Raspberry-Pi MESH setup with embedded APRS capabilities. This unit is designed to go into a vehicle (or just be mobile since it has an lcd output option as well) providing both APRS and mesh capability in one. So far so good and all seems to work very well. For the Pi I am using basic software/hardware which were developed by others (all in the docs) with my own customization done to add friendliness and reliability to it all (I'm a soft.developer IRL). So, for the ones just starting up with meshing and even for the "seasoned" ones which are not too technical, or got disinterested because of the lack of nodes, all I want to say is keep at it! This is the technology of the future - Its viable, its fast, its as secure as you want to make it and it's definitely not dead -- mesh is the way to go! I'll try to visit here and post milestones, but in any case you'll usually catch me on the Houston 145.430 repeater (drop me a call if you need urgent help and/or if want to participate/help with meshing in Houston).
All the best, Alex
K5DDE
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