I agree with KB7SVP's methodology, though it will specify a big system.  Figuring on 500 mA continuously, that's 12 Ah a day, or 60 Ah for 5 days.  To discharge 50%, that means a 120 Ah battery.  At an average of 4 hours of sun a day (the equivalent of the panels putting out full power for 4 hours), you'd need about 15 amps of panel to replenish the charge lost to the router (assuming just the 60 Ah).

Take a look at what the use case is.  If you want continuous operation from solar, you're looking at a system like that.  It should be pretty reliable, and might very well be cheaper/easier than bringing the grid into a remote location.  How many days do you want to be able to go without sun?  (I'd probably pick 3 myself.) 

On the other hand, if you want to be able to run the node on a temporary basis, you can get by with something a lot smaller, especially if you'll be using it in a sunny location during the day.  Remember that lead-acid batteries don't like to sit around at a lower state of charge - it would be preferable to bring it to full at the end of the day.

The charge controllers KB7SVP refers to are called maximum power-point tracking (MPPT) controllers, and are basically switching buck converters.  They use a microprocessor to search for the duty cycle that puts the most current into the battery, and as a side effect can take a higher voltage array which is nice.  They are of course a little more expensive, but for a system around the size of what I described they're not  a bad investment.  In general, a lot of the smaller controllers also have a built-in low-voltage disconnect (LVD) option for shutting loads off when the battery gets too low.

Finally home from travels. I did as you specified and it loaded and runs as advertised. Thank you very much. It will be a very useful addition to our mesh.

Ron, N1AHH.

Ubiquiti is also an option.

Available from many sources including Amazon.

Key Notes

Ubiquiti is weather resistant and specced to harsh outdoor conditions with limited to no loss (direct antenna connection) 

In addition Ubiquiti has a more sensitive receiver and more powerful transmitters.

If you are buying  new gear I recommend looking into them.  Some models even come with built in high gain antennas. 

Oh. Wow. I thought the wrt54g's were post-production and probably only 2nd-hand.

That was three generations ago on my home wifi.

Anyway, thanks for the info. Will be ordering a few.

73,

Joe

Just ordered the Bullett M5 Titanium. Will have it in a few days.

BEFW11S4 appears to not be compatible.  It has the wrong processor, among other things.

You can buy brand new WRT54GL routers at Amazon, among other places.

http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-WRT54GL-Wireless-G-Broadband-Router/dp/B000BTL0OA

Hi Nick,

Sorry for not coming back earlier, I've been quite busy in the last few months. If you want I could email you my presentation. Depending on your interest you might also join us building the network here in West GTA. The plan is to connect the adjacent repeaters to form the backbone. I know that is some distance from your place and you won't be able to connect at the first stage of the project, but you are still welcome to come and have fun experimenting with us.

You can drop me a line at mymail@verevkin.it

73

Anthony

it is a type n connector 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_power_connector 

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3807940

I wanted to add three points to the discussion:

1. It is still not very clear to me why we want to have more security today than we had in 70-s and 80-s (and that's not just about computers and electronics). If we compare BBHN to ham repeaters in 70-s, what has changed? Back then talking over the radio was popular both with hams and non-hams, and one could (technically, but not legally) just buy an FM radio and get on the ham repeater, have fun and/or cause interference. Not much has changed today with WiFi equipment. Why should we not be good today with what used to work back then in the similar situation?

2. We run the omni antenna at our repeater site, here in Mississauga, ON. This means that there is quite a number of hams who could connect to the tower from their house's roof, if they got interested in the technology. And we do want them to just connect, without getting in touch with someone from the club first. This means that even when using the key for BBHN, that is going to be whatever key comes with the image provided on this website. But this way the same key would be available to the new hams as well as the non-hams who were to google up the name and download the image.

3. I also wanted to mention that I once heard the opinion that because in Emergency situations, the law allows a non-ham to use radio frequency, the ham I was talking to wanted us to provide an easy plug-and-play access for non-hams to the network we build, in Emergency situations. This opinion is on the extreme far side of what you are discussing, but still has the right to be.

Having said all that, I would define my own opinion - we should definitely implement the back-off period after several unsuccessful password attempts to save us from the brute force attacks, and maybe add some more transparency and logging on who has connected where, but otherwise I would say we should not be looking at tightening the access to the network, but rather make sure we tighten access on the applications level. And hey, who said your fellow ham can not be the intruder? Also don't offer Internet to the mesh, cause that would be the #1 goal for the young hackers.

73

Anthony VA3IDL

Does anyone know the lineage of this router/ap, BEFW11S4? Is it in any way compatible with the firmware here?

Also, anyone know of a ready source for compatible routers?

Joe

AG6QO@AG6QO.#NCA.CA.USA.NOAM

Does anyone know the lineage of this router/ap, BEFW11S4? Is it in any way compatible with the firmware here?

Also, anyone know of a ready source for compatible routers?

Joe

AG6QO@AG6QO.#NCA.CA.USA.NOAM

Folks,

     We've received a couple of emails about Chatzilla not working with 'ngircd', more specifically using the Service URL provided by the BBHN node's status webpage.

     The issue is not with the proper URLs used by the node's status webpage but with Chatzilla, although Chatzilla is operating as designed.  When an irc: URL is presented to Chatzilla (e.g. irc://ae5ae-base6:6667/mesh) and the hostname portion is not a fully qualified (ae5ae-base6 vs ae5ae-base6.local.mesh) then the hostname portion of the URL is then [mis]interpreted as an IRC Network name. These Network names point to the large IRC networks around the world such as Freenode, IRCnet, GalaxyNet, GamesNET, and many others.  Since our node names probably won't match any of the network names that Chatzilla has embedded into it, the connection will fail.

The internal list of IRC networks can be modified per the instructions at http://chatzilla.hacksrus.com/faq/#networks .  I have used this info to update the internal tables of Chatzilla to allow my service URLs to point to the appropriate mesh nodes, at least for my mesh.  The problem is that I would have to modify the Mozilla file for each new IRC server I want to access via a service URL from our nodes.

Keep in mind that giving the command "/attach ae5ae-base6.local.mesh/mesh" to Chatzilla will work just fine and Chatzilla can work as nicely as an IRC client -- just not from a URL used to link to services on the mesh.

I'm sorry if you're using Chatzilla but I am no longer recommending it as an IRC client.  Please try my workarounds if you are using it.  If those don't suit you then there are PLENTY of other IRC clients available for most every computer known to man.  Yeah, IRC has been around for a bit!  :-)

-Rusty-

This should help:

http://ubnt.hsmm-mesh.org/products/BBHN/wiki/HowTo/FlashUbiquiti

Am I missing something?  I am now trying to set up a Bullet and an Airgrid but am not finding any step by step install data.  The Ubiquity Install for Dummies manual is needed.

Thanks for any help pointing me in the right direction.

Dave KM2O

CloudRF.com is another useful tool. I've used it for mesh network planning here in Northern New Jersey.