Seattle Meshnet 2012-04-13

Dan:

Opens up with thoughts on consumer hardware. We can purchase simple hardware such as M2 and OpenWRT routers and simply point them in directions we'd like to establish nodes. These clusters of nodes would both advertise the network and be available for people to opt in to. Easy to setup. Have it point to a meshnet info page.

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Dan: reiterates; hyperboria internet peering with cjdns nodes. An idea is to get encrypted nodes running across the network.

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Harrison: Is the idea to be completely separate from the internet? Dan: That's still under some debate, not much of an issue right now.

Harrison: why is an injector needed; what is it for.

Dan: it takes four extra strands lying around; two pairs of two and puts between 12 and 48 volts.

Mars: there's not usually voltage, so it takes an unused pair and the device can draw power from it.

Dan: a brand new shipped is about $15. 

Dan: last time I plugged a 48v into my radio a puff of smoke came out.

Charles: Frys is overpriced; the 48v didn't start up my radio but didn't break it either.
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New arrivals at 7:30;

Dan: We're trying to build a network over cjdns.

We've been loading up on Nanostations.

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New arrival: Where is the network going to be?

Dan:
We have a cluster of 6 people near Bothell,
a series of nodes looking at the chip canal cut and locks. And we have a couple nodes on lake union, a few in the central district, but nothing to the NE by UW. Nothing connected yet.

New arrival: Metrix/Seattle Wireless are pretty dead. 

We have a good coverage area over Lake Washington down to Seward park. 

New arrival: Is there a naming system?

Dan: Nothing on our side, New Zealand does NZ, a California group does their city name.

New arrival: how much do the M2s cost?

Mars: they cost about 40? Dan: About 50.

Dan: I've got in contact with a couple ISPs with a ton of old Nanostation2s surplus old equipt.

I've been buying as much as I can but it's never enough.

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Dan:

What do you all think about rooftop panoramic photos?

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Harrison: If I can get roof access I'd get good line of sight.

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Dan tell me how high you can get something up. Not above sea level but above ground level?

Lain: how high can you have antanaes?
Dan: there's a 50ft outside of downtown; you have to get permitted for a tower or a house. You can alter that...

Inside of downtown they have a mess of building zones. There's a map of it somewhere. Building height restrictions go hand and hand with tower height restrictions.

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Dan: Go inside the comment box; 20 ft facing west or 40 ft facing east... 

Yeah; if I'm facing the lake then I have possible access.

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Dan: The white dash on the power brick only sometimes means positive. Flip it and see if it works.

12watts is fine, you can electrocute yourself a litle bit.

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Dan M2s are 90 Degees; the non loco are only 60 degrees. The smaller the width / arc length --- better focused power.

I was over in ballard linking and we switched the channel size to 10 MHz cause I could barely connect at -94; the dropoff is -96db of receive, so we cut it off to that and it shut off to -91. IT was more stable but it just wasn't usable. That was about a 3 or 4 mile link. It kept resyncing.

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New: do you think it would be a good idea if everyone on the lake linked up. We're each going to need two right? 

Dan: Look at the hub and spoke post at r/Darknet. We should go from having 2 -3 radios at each location to having a couple super nodes with 5 - 7 radios and have 1 -2 radios at each little house.

Dan I got in contact with the Free network foundation about setting up a standard node design setup enclosure for batteries and all.

Mars: Automous relays. Dan: yeah.


DAn: We're using 5ghz cause we've tested with it. Those channels are empty.

Harrison: But the tradeoff in range isn't detrimental?

Dan: well, you can't go through more than one tree, so you need height, but the benefits speed and latency-wise are worth it. We can run them up to about 5.9ghz and we can have channel shifting all the way down to the 5ghz bottom of the spectrum. We've essentially got 5 to 5.9ghz,radar works between 5.0 and 5.4ghz; the FCC will warn you twice then start fining you.. Warnings come 6 months apart. Public is about 5.1ghz.

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Locos come in 2.4 and 5ghz variants; they work like 5ghz but just shorter range. You can go ahead and use a wok or a sattalite dish; you know satellite dishes are on craigs list for free; something with a metal mesh. It'll give you a longer range.

New guys: The purely reflective ones won't do much. So a parabolic mirror won't do much.

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ben@ubnt.com; we can tell you how to get to $25k a month as a reseller/distributor.

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