The collinear antenna was historically used by base station sites, stacking various 1/2 wave dipole elements on top of each other for increased gain connected by some equipment to correct for phase error between the elements of the array. The higher in frequency the better in gain you can achieve in a relatively small assembly. The eight  element array built here will yield 6dBi gain (reference: By Brian Oblivion and Capt.Kaboom, modified by Richard A Wenner). 

http://www.nodomainname.co.uk/Omnicolinear/2-4collinear.htm

I used some old "Ethernet" thicknet coax, it's just well shielded RG8U.  Fed by a small 1 or so watt "linear" that also includes a preamp on receive, connected in turn to the WRT54G box running HSMM-MESH.  It should get out pretty well, but nobody else is in the area...  I do see a lot of wifi routers in the neighborhood. 

I used a halfwave groundplane a quarter wavelength below the bottom 1/2 wave segment.  Here it is in a crawl space closet just under the house roof.

Attachments
 hsmmmeshantenna.jpg [12 KB] ::

I just got my node online.  I'm in Pittsburg, CA.  I put it on the map. Sadly I'm not picking up any other nodes in the area. I'm using the ver 3 firmware on a Ubiquiti Bullet M2 with a vertical.

cookie dump worked :)

All WRT54GL's are a compatible version and can be had new for around 50$. They have been specifically made to be just barely be supported (16/4). They are still a scaled down version of the early WRT54G's (32/8).  They are usable as basic nodes under the existing firmware (and can still be bought new at 50$). But as a developer they don't carry enough space (flash or ram) for testing or even for users to do patch upgrading because of the lack flash space.

Has anybody experience with providing DHCP Option 66 service the mesh?
Yes. Does it work? Results may vary. Quick Google search yields: https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=7315. You could also set the TFTP server location directly on the phone. Sometimes it will even allow you input a hostname instead of an IP Address!

3CX seems to be very comprehensive PBX system...What were your experience with 3CX?
It's limited. The free version only allows for 4 concurrent internal and external calls at any given time. But if that limitation is not a problem, feel free to use it. However, keep in mind that AsteriskNOW and Elastix are free and give you more freedom all for the same functionality as 3CX.

Well, not much of a subject title but for a door opener I'll settle for that.  I thought I'd cast a pebble into the BBHN pond and see what happens for the Indiana/OH border area along I-70 maybe?  Hamilton, OH? Maybe over into Dayton?  Hoping this forum might be of some value.

I have three Linksys units up 'n running and talking to each other in the  house.  My first attempt and it worked out.  Yes, I know the big focus is Ubiquity but the WRT boxes were really easy to come by and, cost effective for me right now.  Might be a good way to test the waters in this area without a big outlay.

I'm working toward VOIP, IRC, messaging, APRS, and finding ways to use a mesh daily.  Not just for a special event or strict public service.  I'm thinking that I'll probably have the mesh up for my own use until someone else makes a node and has a try with it.  Now, as for a site survey, that's another matter.  I need to look at that and look at external antennas now too.

But, that said, my mesh is up.  Nothing official to put on a map yet but the first step has been taken.  I'm hoping to do a "show 'n tell" at the next Races meeting at the EOC.

Located about 35 miles West of Dayton and about 60 miles East of Indianapolis, give or take.

Howard W6IDS EM79NV

But you just used the method without even realizing :-)

TX and ye shall RX....

http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/hsmm-mesh-forums/view-topiclist/forum-49-eastcentral-in.html

And in lieu of a built in site search right now, you can go to Google, and in the search bar:

site:www.broadband-hamnet.org {search string}

the "site:URL" asks Google to search ONLY the site you enter.

73

Hi all,

I was wondering if theres somethign I am missing from the documentation regarding resetting these to 'default' mode of the meshnet firmware.  I have moved and a few months ago this was taken offline and now that I pulled it out to set backup I am unable to get into the device.  The only way was basically getting into the thing with failsafe mode.  Honestly I was trying to upload the 3.0 firmware which supercedes the 1.0 but for now the unit is dead, but least failsafe works

The unit boots up, when you connect a cable on the lan ports it gets an ip from the meshnet dhcp server.  Not sure where my disconnect is.  Sadly is I can open the port 8080 at dhcp server ip but it will not return a page and gives the generic cannot load page.

73 N9SEO

In East Central Indiana there is no Broadband activity and little knowledge of it, per se.

Has anyone successfully converted a Direct TV dish for use on BBHN to do testing and such?  Dual bow-ties or some such configuration.  I have two which I thought might be useful as a gain antenna instead of purchasing a "ready made" antenna.

I'd like to see what the activity can become after a "show and tell" meeting at our local EOC in December before I purchase a directional antenna.  My intention is to continue with the mesh work regardless but would prefer to move slowly if activity in the local area is negligible.

Thanks for Reading,

Howard W6IDS

I have been working on a small, 2-node mesh technology demonstrator as a promotional aid for my club.

I have successfully provided VOIP communications with Yealink-T19P phones and the free version of the 3CX PBX on my laptop. My mini-mesh uses 2, WRT54L's and V3.0 mesh firmware. I've arranged my hardware to take advantage of standards-compliant POE power to make the whole arrangement easy to deploy at club meetings, field days, etc... .

My next step is to take more advantage of my hardware/software. I have a few questions:

1) Has anybody experience with providing DHCP Option 66 service the mesh? I've got to find a way to automatically setup phones. My SIP phones have a neat PnP capability, but it doesn't seem to work over the mesh.

2) 3CX seems to be very comprehensive PBX system. Does anybody else use this on a mesh? What were your experience with 3CX?

Thanks for any comments,

Greg, AI4ZR

I haven't flushed yet.

FF33.1 Win 8.1

Cookie name: 9d96ea3a1b908a733149cb1ac7fef91f

Cookie content: 464597519a3546bc473cf7faa38c7fae

multiple tabs open but when I F5 after logging in to one, they all come up with my call.

the map page says:

You are currently logged in to the private area of this site

For a while I have felt this was my little secret and have almost always been able to buy routers with a tiny price tag. So with the publishing of this link I believe my supply will dry up .

Take a look and you will be hard pressed for a better price, yes they are refurbs but they are MFG direct.

http://store.linksys.com/outlet/Router/linksys-WRT54GL-RM_stcVVproductId118092828VVcatId543906VVviewprod.htm

Good luck

Jeff N9OKV

I know this is a little off topic but this is for the member who could not find a wrt54g router.

For a while I have felt this was my little secret and have almost always bee able to buy routers with a tiny price tag. So with the publishing of this link I believe my supply will dry up .

Take a look and you will be hard pressed for a better price, yes they are refurbs but they are MFG direct.

http://store.linksys.com/outlet/Router/linksys-WRT54GL-RM_stcVVproductId118092828VVcatId543906VVviewprod.htm

Good luck

Jeff N9OKV

Rich

In my opinion, there are no "working" v2 networks out there.  The bugs found when v2 was implemented  on larger networks caused my network to crash within hours. These required manual resets of the nodes to get them back on the air. If you are running v2 on you network, please update to v3. I know it is difficult to update all the nodes and get everyone to do the updates of their equipment but in this case it is pretty much mandatory.

Right now all the Linksys gear can have 3.0.0 loaded on them. They will connect with the Ubiquiti gear running 3.0.0. There are still a few nodes using Linksys on the mesh network we have here in Waco. The Linksys boxes are handling the 3.0.0 connections just fine. The problems I personally had in v2 are fixed. Given what I know, I recommend you update everything to 3.0.0 as soon as you can.

The big difference between the protocols between v2 and v3 is the Secure OLSRD module is disabled. It was also disabled in v1. It was on in 0.4.3 but caused problems when activated in v2. I believe v4 will have Secure OLSRD back in it. I also believe that once v4 is released that it will be around for a long time. I am in hopes that it makes it into the last Linksys builds but that is yet to be determined. If that is the case then your Linksys boxes will be viable for a long time to come. Even if they are running 3.x.x they will be a very useful tool. And the 3.x.x firmware can be loaded on the UBNT hardware even if there are future versions to allow for backward compatibility. All you have to do is run the older firmware which will be on the BBHN website.

The answer for how long you can run the Linksys boxes depends on how long the 3.x.x or what ever gets released before EOS is good enough for you to use. I suspect that will be many years.  I see enough uses for the WRT54G to keep mine around. I also know that there are some very clever people out there that can do some amazing things with this hardware. It is likely that someone will figure out how to bridge mesh networks on different revisions. Someone may step up and take on the task of updating the Linksys firmware to allow it to connect to future versions of the firmware. Who knows?