A mobile rig!  That explains why our nodes only connected once.

I run a script once an hour as a cron job on a Raspberry Pi attached to one of my mesh nodes.  It sends me an email whenever my node sees a new "neighbor" for the first time.

#!/bin/bash
if test $# -lt 1; then
	echo "Usage: meshNotify <host>"
	exit 1
fi

# Get list of current connections from the mesh node
cd ~/meshNotify
scp -i ~/.ssh/petKey -P 2222 root@$1:/tmp/node.history .
cat node.history | mawk '{print $3}' > nodeList

# Compare with the previous list and figure out what's new
fprev="nodeList.old"
newNodes=""
if [ -e "$fprev" ]
then
	newNodes=$(grep -v -f nodeList.old nodeList)
fi
cp nodeList nodeList.old
echo "New nodes:"
echo $newNodes

# Email list of new nodes
if [ -n "$newNodes" ]; then
	echo "Sending email"
	echo "Subject: Mesh node connection" > msg.txt
	echo "" >> msg.txt
	echo "Connection from new node(s):" >> msg.txt
	echo $newNodes >> msg.txt
	cat msg.txt | /usr/sbin/ssmtp myemail@example.com
	echo "Email content: "
	cat msg.txt
	rm msg.txt
fi

if you want to discuss, I'm happy to talk about it offline (as not to detract from the BBHN forums) k5dlq@arrl.net

Hi n7ego. Your mesh was contacted by my mobile rig, namely a router in my car. I picked up about 5 stations driving around doing errands Salt Lake around that time as well. I have to remember to check it before it loses power. Sometimes you can see contact was made but not established well enough to get a callsign and other times there is a callsign in the history.

I've set up hamchat on my node and put it in the advertised services jic.

I think a cool hack while we are still trying to grow to an interesting network would be for hamchat to log connect & disconnects with other mesh nodes. I dug around and looked at the APIs that are used to get the mesh topology and it could watch for changes there.

I'm using Hosafe cameras (Amazon and Newegg). The 1Mp version is $40. **It works fine on the my Hamnet.-- Gordon

**Well I've run into a problem when using more than one of these cameras at the same time on the Mesh Network. The cameras will lose connection to the network. The only solution I've found is to cycle the power. Then it works for a few minutes and the feed is lost again. I tried the cameras on a Netgear N600 router with factory firmware and they did not lose connection at all. I assume it must be an issue with the mesh network.

Note: I tried using individual cameras on separate Ubiquiti Nanostations nodes,  all three cameras into a Linksys mesh node and all three into a Netgear switch attached to a Ubiquiti node. I get the same issue with each configuration. If I use just one Hosafe camera on the mesh network it operates correctly.

Appologies in advance if this has been covered already.

I am wanting to develop an iOS mesh server app; connected via Wifi to mesh node.  Server App will serve HTTP/WEBDav for file upload/download.  The smart part is being able to "KNOW" the connected nodes so that the servers can communicate with each other when they are discovered so to speak.  As nodes connect and disconnect the iOS Server App can keep track. A client app can connect to their local node server and also have automatic access to data on other node servers.

I know that this information is available on the node web-interface but I would like my app to be able to access this live.

Is there some API that can be polled to retrieve this information, other can screen scraping the web-interface? 

Finally, is there a mechanism for an external device to register a service and add a port forwarding entry in the node?  This is so that my iOS app could tell if a newly connected node had an iOS device with the app running.

Getting a node into the Standard AP or Mesh AP mode and losing control of it is a very common problem.

Keep in mind that both of those operating modes turn off the DHCP server in the access point node. this is mentioned in the help screens within the mesh node. There is some good reading there. You can get past this by connecting the node with the problem to a normal mesh node back to back on the lan.  To do this, take a cat5 cord and plug into one of the 4 lan jacks on one device and connect the other end to the same set of jacks on the other device. 

Plug your control computer into a lan jack on either node and use http://localnode:8080/ to log in. You can then hop over to the other device and enter it's management screen to change the operating mode back to mesh node. Do not use the WAN plug on either device.

Remember that when you first load firmware, make a change in which operating mode you are using, or do any of several other things, the IP address will need to change. Be sure to remove the network cable on your control computer, wait 30 seconds and then insert it again. In most cases, you will have to close your web browser and then restart it after you see the new IP address issued (network cable connected) notice.

I have a node up at the south end of Cedar Hills.  Not as much elevation as the north part of Cedar Hills.  But looking back in my logs I see that it connected briefly with kg7dgh-4 on April 27 around 10:30 pm.  It's been down most of the time since then due to a construction project at my house, but I put it back up last week.  It's on the south side of the house and has a clear view to the south and west, which is not ideal for connecting to Highland.  But I'm intrigued since they did see each other that one time in the past.  Has your node moved since then or is it still in the same location?

I am proposing to provide a listing of known UTAH Broadband-Hamnet nodes in a database-type pdf format available on the internet if there is enough interest.

This would allow you to look up who that "previous neighbor" was, or list it's URL so someone could identify it, also to let each other know what is on the air out there, and where it is located.

Please e-mail your thoughts to me at W0HU at ARRL dot NET, let's try harder this year to get connected!

Jerry/W0HU

Hi all,

Hamnet was a smash at our Field Day! The mesh was primarily used for the logging software and everyone was pleased with how well it worked. I hope to have a more detailed report after the next SVARA club meeting in August. No July meeting due to the Fourth of July holiday.

VoIP, web and HamChat services were also available through the mesh. A GL node was provided to allow others to connect to the mesh but no one took advantage of this. I believe wireless access to the mesh would have been more successful.

73 and happy meshing
KE8AVJ

This year the Troy ARA (okay, yours truly) decided to dispense with the lengthy runs of Cat5e and wired up our 4 Field Day logging stations. The configuration had two nodes handling two logging stations each, and a third node connected to the main logging 'server'. A spare node was on hand, but was not needed.

https://twitter.com/k2mts/status/614873064921300993

RFI was a concern but did not affect the network at all. The only hiccup was during an overnight generator fuel swap, where one of the logging clients came up in local mode instead of network -- this was quickly resolved, and was not directly related to the network itself.

Some minimal smoke testing was done the night before FD (of course it was the night before) which proved that the setup could work. There was minimal risk because the Cat5 cable could have always been run as usual as a last resort.

I'm very pleased with how this experiment turned out, and look forward to using this solution again for many Field Day's to come. Maybe next year, an IP camera & node on top of our crank up tower?

Bonus teardown video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDjxesPuIbo

73

Mike K2MTS

For W1RGC:

 http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/hsmm-mesh-forums/view-postlist/forum-1-general/topic-754-wrt54g-conversion-from-tomato.html

See if this comes out OK.