And brother, was there ever progress <GRIN>.  For this ol' cowboy, there's been a real learning experience.  First time with a Raspberry which I received this past Tuesday 11/25.

I can't tell you how many times I reformatted the SD microdisk or rewrote to the card the Raspbian software.  I could not get the Raspberry to boot!  Spent the better part of 11/23 - 11/24 working with it to no avail.  Now, it seemed to me that I received either a bad Raspberry or a defective micro SD card. I even went so far as to advise Newegg of the matter for info and some guidance.

I have been working with Ted G4ELM (hmmm, ELM is the beginning for "Elmer") and good guidance.  Was locked up with this matter, so started browsing around for info.  Went to all the sites of importance but got nowhere as such.  There is a possible 1%, maybe <1% chance the PI was to blame.  More than likely it was the mcro SD card because all Raspberries are given a pretty thorough checkout prior to shipment.  If they left the door, they were working, component failure not withstanding.

Finally the suggestion brought up in dialogue with Ted in email and Lot K6IRF in the message group called Raspberry_Pi_4-Ham_RADIO about the vagaries of that little micro SD card slot.  Fragile stuff there.  To cut to the chase, I found out what the true problem was - I did not have the micro card fully seated and LOCKED into place.  Simply because of unfamiliarity - the little micro SD card does indeed "lock" into position within the slot.

When I realized what was going on, I put power back onto the PI with all the USB cables and HD TV attached and VOILA!  IT WORKED!  What a relief.  So, word to the wise for newbes.  Be careful but do check and make sure your micro SD card is really seated.

Now, I can proceed onward with Broadband.  Working now with the Web server software on the PI. That seems to be the easiest thing to accomplish right now, per se. All three WRT54G nodes are working and talking to each other - been running 24/7 the past couple of weeks now with no problems showing.  

I do need to check into Headless operation now too.  I have a 24Dbi grill ant arriving today, Friday 11/28 but I need a couple of OMNIs as well.

Yep! It DOES seem like this forum is becoming MY Blog . I forgot to mention that I'm still looking at Web mail as part of the Web page but that still needs to be evaluated. I need to determine if the various offerings have to be kept separate or if I can offer multiple services off a single server on a PI. Interesting project and my little MESH hasn't even gone public yet. Can't wait to register it. And yes, it is indeed "So far so good." My avoiding both Linux and Raspberry (because of Linux) was pretty much based upon a history of disappointments with Linux. It simply did not get along with ME. What the root cause was, I don't know. However, as I said, it's turning out to be much more fun than I anticipated. Howard W6IDS Richmond, IN