Hi Rick and others,

Folks here at the San Lorenzo Valley Amateur Radio Club are very excited with HSMM-MESH. I don't have an article about our achievements, but here is an update.

Our most significant success is adding 2m/6m-repeater control via an HSMM-MESH link. This new control link eliminates our club's monthly telephone bill. I don't think we're ready to publish details, but at the repeater site we use a WRT54GL with an RS-232 port. This link to the repeater is one of three links that comprise our current, disconnected network of five nodes.

We have many eager members, working equipment, and rolling terrain that is covered with 200-foot redwood trees. So CLOS is a challenge. Generally, the two nodes on opposite rims of the valley can see each other, but sights to and from potential locations lower down are blocked by vegetation. To understand our dilemma, here is a link to a (large) web page that shows parts of the valley that are visible from my house. Click the "Satellite" link in the upper-right corner to see what we're presented with. Although the visible area is large, what I can see is mostly trees, not houses.

http://www.slvarc.org/k3rry.html

Our long-term goal is to get a more complete network installed that has at least two available connections to the Internet. Since our 11-km rim-to-rim link is surprisingly robust (even though it goes through a tree) my hope is that that we will be able to connect the network using more rim nodes. With improved coverage, our network will serve as connections for other, temporarily deployed HSMM-MESH nodes.

We've experimented with both commercial and home-brew antennas. Here are some of the home-brew ones:

https://www.slvarc.org/all-articles/100-home-brew-night-2012

Kerry Veenstra, K3RRY