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DAN\'S MELBOURNE WIRELESS NODE

CURRENT STATUS: OPERATIONAL

MEMBER OF SOUTHERN [1] REGIONAL GROUP

evolute74atNOhotmailSPAM.com [2]

Remove the NO SPAM before sending.

Locfinder [3] page:
http://melbournewireless.org.au/nodes/view.php?id=gmr [4]

NodeDB [5] page:
http://www.nodedb.com/australia/vic/melbourne/view.php?nodeid=364 [6]

16 SEPTEMBER

I've been updating my wiki page. The entries written below with
"retrospective" after them were written today. It's been an
interesting few months now that I look back at them. I've now got a
Pentium 166 box given to me by my Dad and I've installed Debian on it.
With Glenn NodeGES [7] and Steve's NodeGEZ [8] help it'll be routing
and webserving to my wireless interfaces. I've gotten a 1 watt
Longreach amp that I've connected to my Omni. I've done some
netstumbling around the neighborhood and I can pick up my own signal
using an Enterasys card with the built-in antenna from almost 1
kilometre away - at ground level! My main aim now is to get a link to
Peter NodeGUR [9] - 4.5 km away. I've used the amp to do some testing
to him and we got a very good link - pity the power levels we were
testing with are considered illegal. So now the challege is to get a
link with legal power levels. I think this whole area will really
start to come together if we can get that link.

27 AUGUST - RETROSPECTIVE

I now have my mast up at 12 metres. I hope to leave it at that height
if at all possible. Thank you to my TV industry buddies, who like me
work on weekends but have many weekdays off. And also a big thanks to
housemate Marta for holding the ropes for so long. The weather was
good but there were some slightly hairy moments putting it up. I kept
having flashbacks to that fateful day of the first mast falling. I'd
like to say I kept cool and calm but that just isn't quite true. But
we got there. On top of the mast is the antenna rotator which rotates
the horizontal 25dB Hills parabolic antenna. There is an 8dB Superpass
Omni above it at the very top of the mast. Just below the rotator is
the vertical 25dB Hills.

Present were: Bruce S, V8 Dave, Timmy P, Marta and myself. Peter B
turned up after the mast had been raised and the BBQ had begun.

CIRCA 12 AUGUST - RETROSPECTIVE

Have been connected to Glenn NodeGES [10] by various methods since we
put the mast up. I can connect to his waveguide and AP with my
horizontal hills and he can connect my my omni with his vertical
galaxy. Have been doing some transfers - I've set up an Apache
webserver on my little Windows 95 laptop for Glenn to transfer from.
We've been getting transfers at about 160KB/s. But the ethernet card
in it is pretty flaky so I can't reliably use it as a router, even
temporarily.

Also my AP has sort-of died. I think there's something wrong with the
voltage regulator. The USB cable can't fix this problem. Gonna have to
bring the mast down. I've decided to just stick a Superpass up there
and have an amp down at ground level. So no more AP-in-a-box-up-a-mast
for me. It's just not reliable enough given that it's so hard to get
the mast up. It's a bit much to be asking people around to put up my
mast every month becase the AP has some problem or other.

27 JULY 2003 - RETROSPECTIVE

Had a mast raising BBQ at my place today. Bought a new BBQ. Lots of
people showed up, thanks everyone! Unfortunately the wind picked up a
bit and it made it not possible to put the mast up to 15m as I'd
planned. But we got it up to 9m. Peter B bought around a mast rotator
making it possible for me to rotate my two Hills 25dB parabolic
antennas independantly of each other.

Present were: Troy (txrx), Rick, Vak, Peter B (Melb_AP), Glenn
(Graybeard) who took the photos, Dave (my Dad), the mysterious Mr E
and myself.

Glenn's pics are here [11]

21 JULY 2003 - RETROSPECTIVE

My newest creation is complete - my second SVEC Access Point in a
box. It's smaller and lighter than my previous effort - this time I
took the circuit board out of the SVEC casing and put it into a
wateright PVC jiffy box. Also I soldered a chassis-mount female
N-Connector straight onto the board and poked it through a hole in the
jiffy box and siliconed the hell out of it. One other thing - I put a
USB socket in the jiffy box and ran a short usb cable to the connector
on the board. I got some shielded Belden cable and made a 12 metre USB
cable. Yes, it works. You can run USB 12 metres if you use the right
cable. I've done this so I can reset the box if it decides to go belly
up at the top of the mast and needs factory defaults reset. SVECs tend
to do this.

Pics of the old and the new AP boxes here [12]

15 JULY 2003 - RETROSPECTIVE

The mast went up, the mast fell down. Overexuberance,
under-preparation and under-estimation of the physics involved on my
part is entirely to blame.

Present were: Rick, Andrew G, Jason (Midway) and myself.

Pictures of the aftermath here [13]

17 JUNE 2003

Bought a big ass mast yesterday - a 15m Hills Telomast. Can't wait to
see the neighbour's reactions when I put it up. Thanks to rik [14]
for helping me get it. Now to put it up.

I put my AP on the roof last week for two nights... I had to take it
down as it had no guys and it was swaying a bit. And I wanted to take
it to show and tell at the MW meeting of the 13th June. It was a
popular little box.

Here's the photos of it, as promised...

[15]

The SVEC AP, in it's box.

[16]
A close-up of the voltage regulator, which is a $9 kit from Jaycar.

[17]
The assembled product, ready to go up.

[18]
It's brief stint on top to the TV antenna.

OTHER NEWS:

I've added myself to the RGSouthern [19] page and the mailing list.

8 JUNE 2003

Did some stumbling on the roof last week, saw NodeGHO [20]!
Unfortunately didn't see rik's node NodeAFH [21] which is what I was
hoping to do. Very seriously considering putting up a big mother of a
mast in the backyard.

My waterproof box for my SVECWLAP [22] FD-1811-A AP is done, I've
tested it and now it's ready to be sealed up and put on the roof. Pics
of the innards to follow. I'm going to put my Hyperlink 8dB omni on it
to start with.

30 APRIL 2003

I've picked up my two Hills 25dB grid parabolas from Simon Butcher.
Damn these mothers is big! I've got marginal LOS to Mt Dandenong so
when I get some more cabling I'm gonna get up on the roof and do some
stumbling. rik [23] of NodeAFH [24] is keen to do some testing to my
node too.

Here's the view from my roof

Panorama Low Res [25]
Panorama Hi Res [26]

28 APRIL 2003

This is Dan's Node.

I'm still building really, but I've got pretty much all the bits and
pieces to get going. Ultimately I hope to have a couple of directional
links to people in my area and an omni on the roof for the use of
mobile users.

Links:
------
[1] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?RGSOUTHERN
[2] mailto:evolute74@NOhotmailSPAM.com
[3] http://melbournewireless.org.au/nodes
[4] http://melbournewireless.org.au/nodes/view.php?id=gmr
[5] http://www.nodedb.com
[6] http://www.nodedb.com/australia/vic/melbourne/view.php?nodeid=364
[7] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?NodeGES
[8] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?NodeGEZ
[9] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?NodeGUR
[10] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?NodeGES
[11] http://users.bigpond.net.au/flett/mastraising01/
[12] http://users.bigpond.net.au/flett/wireless/APBoxes.htm
[13] http://users.bigpond.net.au/flett/wireless/mastfalldown.htm
[14] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?toby
[15] http://users.bigpond.net.au/flett/wireless/images/AP_in_box.jpg
[16]
http://users.bigpond.net.au/flett/wireless/images/VoltageRegulator.jpg
[17] http://users.bigpond.net.au/flett/wireless/images/Box_on_mast.jpg
[18] http://users.bigpond.net.au/flett/wireless/images/AP_on_roof.jpg
[19] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?RGSouthern
[20] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?NodeGHO
[21] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?NodeAFH
[22] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?SVECWLAP
[23] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?toby
[24] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?NodeAFH
[25]
http://users.bigpond.net.au/flett/wireless/images/PanoramaLowRes.jpg
[26]
http://users.bigpond.net.au/flett/wireless/images/PanoramaHiRes.jpg

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