Through the ether...errr....looking glass

Been suffering from the mother of all colds for the last seven days.  Finally feel up to posting anything.

I was working a little PSK31 at QRP power levels the other day, and was rewarded with an email containing a screenshot of my signal.  This is from Michael, CK3NOO, who has quite the interesting website here.  I love getting screenshots of my signal back during a QSO.  It is final proof that I have everything set up right and that I'm not splattering as you see some folks do.

It is really easy to get a screenshot if you are using DM780, all you need to do it hit Atl+PrntScrn and DM780 will save a copy of your screen to a "DigitalMaster780" folder under "My Pictures".

A few weeks before that I was tinkering around on SSTV during the Sunday night Reddit net.  One of the people on the net (I think it was Jeff, NT1K) was kind enough to post the image that I had sent via HF.

I'm not much into SSTV, but it was neat to be able to send this to him sans internet connection, and extra interesting to get to see it as he saw it.  Here is the original as I sent it (before adding callsign):

You can see that HF wasn't kind to it.  Someone else on that net received it in almost original condition and posted that, but it appears that I have lost that one.

Well, that's it for this post.  Time for more meds and sleep.

73,

Richard, KK4JDO

And more mesh cross-posts...

September 24 at 5:56pm

The antennas arrived today! 2 x 9dBi and 2 x 5dBi outdoor dual-band antenna (2.4/5.. Now I just need to score some RP-TNC to N adapters. I have enough 5' LMR-400 jumpers with RP-TNC connectors to get all four hooked up. I need to find some nema enclosures to pole mount the APs.

So the question becomes, do I eschew diversity and go with one antenna per AP, or do I hook up two APs with two antenna each. I'm leaning towards one antenna per AP since I'm not going to be serving mobile clients. What does everyone else think?




September 24 at 6:14pm

Today's arrival brings me to the following inventory:

HSMM Mesh "Go-Package":

Site 1:
Cisco/Linksys WRT54G v2 running v1.0 firmware
Cisco 7961G-GE IP Phones running 8.5.4 SIP firmware
Cisco 7914 Extension Module (14 extension sidecar)
Cisco 2940 8-port Managed Swich
Cisco ATA 187 two line ATA
Grandstream HT-286 ATA
Raspberry Pi running Asterisk and Prosody
9dBi outdoor collinear antenna
Rubbermaid Roughneck 18gl Container

Site 2:
Cisco/Linksys WRT54GL v1.1 running v1.0 firmware
Cisco 7961G IP Phones running 8.5.4 SIP firmware
APC NetBotz 420 IP Camera and Environment Sensor
9dBi outdoor collinear antenna
Rubbermaid Roughneck 3gl Container

Site 3:
Cisco/Linksys WRT54GL v1.1 running v1.0 firmware
Cisco 7961G IP Phones running 8.5.4 SIP firmware
APC NetBotz 420 IP Camera and Environment Sensor
5dBi outdoor collinear antenna
Rubbermaid Roughneck 3gl Container

Site 4:
Cisco/Linksys WRT54GS running v1.0 firmware
Cisco 7961G IP Phones running 8.5.4 SIP firmware
5dBi outdoor collinear antenna
Rubbermaid Roughneck 3gl Container

eBay, here I come.  I still need to find:

One more 2-line ATA
Two more NetBotz cameras
Three more PoE injectors to power the APs
Three more data switches
Four nema boxes to pole mount the APs
Four phone patches of some description
Four sturdy collapsible poles
Four power strips

Once that these are found I will have a deployable mesh solution for Field Day or EmComm duties that will support Voice, Video, and Data at four locations (assuming line of site between the antennas or additional mesh hops).

I will keep looking for more WRT54G routers and antennas for mesh infrastructure duties. Although I would suggest something like the Cisoc 1552e APs for actual mesh backhaul. I worry about having a WRT54G atop a tower.