• FieldDay2006

Personal Telco's Field Day

Personal Telco's Field Day is inspired by 2006 Field Day of Seattle Wireless.

Field Day Part 2 (Saturday, October 28)

When: October 28th 2006

Where: Rocky Butte
IRC: Online at #ptp, irc.personaltelco.net
FRS Radio: Channel 11 (turn off privacy codes)
Photos: http://www.personaltelco.net/gallery/fieldday2006

Sites

According to a geodetic calculator the distance between Rocky Butte and Crown Point is 25.134 km or 15.6 miles. The distance to Larch Mountain is 37.415 km or 23.25 miles.

Gear

People

Add your name to this list of what level of participation(Site Leader, Demo Lead or General Help) you would like, also provide a brief description of your demo idea if you are doing a demo:

Routing

Outdoor Ad-Hoc Events 10.11.204.0/22 Gateway: 10.11.204.1

Logistics

Rough plan:

• From Rocky Butte, point a 24 dBi parabolic 2.4GHz antenna at a NE Portland PTP node, NodeErik (Erik's Meraki Mini got attached to his outdoor omni on 10/26, and will hopefully be usable from Rocky Butte, SSID: "meraki").

• From Rocky Butte, point a 27 dBi parabolic 5.8GHz antenna at Crown Point in master-mode
• From Crown Point, point a 27 dBi parabolic 5.8GHz antenna at Rocky Butte in client-mode
• From Crown Point, point the 19 dBi panel 2.4GHz antenna towards Rooster Rock State Park in master-mode
• If we get Crown Point working, and the road is open, maybe drive the gear up to the top of Larch Mountain and try again from there.

Notes

• DonPark arrives first, a little after 10 am

• RussellSenior arrives next, at about 10:30 am

• Weather, foggy

• Russell uses laptop and Senao card to look for open networks in NE Portland, in particular the meraki network operated by ErikWalthinsen, but thick fog makes pointing the 24 dBi 2.4 GHz parabolic antenna haphazard

• Russell and Don begin assembling the non-penetrating roof mount mast and the 27 dBi 5.8 GHz parabolic antennas, and wait for fog to lift

• Russell and Don fire up metrixes and begin to configure them for use, discovering Metrix-02 has only one radio (the other is on loan to NodeSmallWhiteCube), initially have some trouble with Metrix-01's ethernet

• Russell and Don continue to search for a usable network for the 2.4GHz connection to the internet

• Russell mounts the second 27 dBi 5.8 GHz antenna to CalebPhillips loaned tripod

• SethShikora arrives

• Don and Seth eat and drink while Russell continues to fiddle
• At about 1:00 pm - 1:30 pm the fog lifts substantially

• SamChurchill arrives

• Russell completes configuration of Metrix-02, which associates to the Metrix-01 sitting nearby over the 5.8 GHz link
• At about 2:45 pm, Russell and Sam pack up the antenna, metrix and laptop and depart for Crown Point. Signs on I-84 indicate that the Old Highway is closed at the Larch Mountain road, meaning that in order to reach Crown Point, one must take the further Exit 28 at Bridal Veil, and backtrack.
• Arrived at Crown Point at about 3:30, was informed by Vista House staff that the balcony would close in approximately 10 minutes.
• Were in voice contact with Rocky Butte over Don's FRS radios at a range of 15 miles
• Quickly set up, was getting some signal but could not associate with Rocky Butte.
• When the balcony closed, relocated first to the steps to the north of Vista House, then to the sidewalk along the highway a bit further north. It was not possible to identify Rocky Butte visually, so the antenna was pointed by guesswork. Saw a signal strength as good as -69 dB but failed to achieve association.
• Tried switching both ends to horizontal polarity, signal was worse.
• Although Russell had stupidly neglected to bring the 19 dBi 2.4GHz patch antenna along, a 2.4 GHz link was attempted (the atheros radios have more power and, i think, sensitivity on 2.4 GHz) using the 24 dBi parabolic antenna at Rocky Butte and Russell's pathetic 9 dBi yagi and his Senao card in his laptop. Saw squat at the Crown Point end.
• Packed up and drove back to Rocky Butte, where the gear was loaded back into Russell's car around 5 pm and we departed for home.

• Afterwards, Russell tried InvictusNetworks Fade Margin Calculator and it appears it should have been doable (if Russell is putting the numbers in right). 16 dBm TX power, 27 dBi antennas at both ends, 2 dBi cable losses, 15.6 miles with an Atheros CM9, guessing at -72 dBm for receiver sensitivity, should have given us a fade margin around 62 dB. Dunno what was wrong.

Field Day Part 1 (August)

When: August 26th 2006
Where: see Sites
IRC: Online at #ptp, irc.personaltelco.net
FRS Radio: Channel 11 (turn off privacy codes)
Photos: http://www.personaltelco.net/gallery/fieldday2006

Schedule (from Seattle Wireless)

Sites

Distance = 5.6 miles or 9 km

Gear

People

Add your name to this list of what level of participation(Site Leader, Demo Lead or General Help) you would like, also provide a brief description of your demo idea if you are doing a demo:

Routing

Either bridge everything off of the hostel's 10.11.100,101,102,103.0 network or use the 10.11.204,205,206,207.0 network which is reserved for ad-hoc networks like this one.

Logistics

I propose we all meet at MtTabor. Once the initial link is functional, we can dispatch teams from there. Also, it will allow us to set up the gear at least partially all in the same location, which will make coordination a lot easier. If you have car inverters, please bring them. They will allow us to plug in PoE injectors, reducing the necessity to open the metrixes. I am considering making a test run Friday evening (anybody want to come along, please contact me) to establish the MtTabor-NodeHawthorne link. --RussellSenior

Notes

DonPark, TomHiggins, TamarackBirchWheeles, RussellSenior, and SamChurchill participated. We met at the Reservoir at MtTabor and fiddled. Tom was able to hear NodeHawthorne with kismet, but couldn't associate. Russell configured two metrixes with pyramid and got them talking to each other, then Don and Tom headed off for CouncilCrest with the 24 dBi antenna on Sam's tripod. Tamarack headed for the roof of the Ondine and Russell and Sam headed up to the top of MtTabor. There is no car access to the upper loop, so Russell parked at the gate and loaded the gear onto a jogging stroller and they wheeled it up the hill. Russell and Sam set up one of the sleds loaned by the MississippiGrantProject and got the antennas attached. Sam's 19 dBi patch antenna had insufficient bolts to attach to the mast, so bolts were borrowed from the smaller 13 dBi patch (the latter was less critical, and the deficiency was compensated for with some gaffers tape). The MtTabor location got an association to NodeHawthorne immediately.

The FRS radios were sufficiently powerful to communicate between the MtTabor and CouncilCrest locations, and the bulk of voice communications during setup took place over them. Both CouncilCrest and Ondine were visible from MtTabor, but at first neither would associate to www.personaltelco.net/tabor. Tom and Don flipped polarization at their end, and immediately achieved an association. Then it was just a matter of fixing up the routing in between, setup /etc/resolv.conf appropriately, authing and they were online. Tom got on IRC, used Skype to call his wife, and generally expressed glee.

After establishing the link to CouncilCrest, we reoriented the antenna to point at Ondine. Even after that, a rotation of maybe 6-8 degrees, we managed to get some traffic from CouncilCrest before they turned off the metrix. Tamarack's gear did not want to associate, so we gave up on that and started to tear down the gear.

We spoke with many curious passersby, including a bicycle security officer. I asked her about getting permission to get through the locked gate in order to drive our gear to the top of MtTabor. She said to contact the Portland Park Bureau to request access. We talked about doing something slightly more ambitious for next time, such as adding MtTabor, or perhaps even try LarchMountain. The latter might not be so tractable if we wait for the end of October, as snow shoes might be needed by then.

Later, Russell debriefed on the event with CalebPhillips afterwards, during which they brainstormed the idea of doing a wireless kiosk on the PacificCrestTrail somewhere. PTP members go camp somewhere along the trail for a week, meet through-hikers and let them check their email/surf/etc via a temporarily established wifi relay. Need to get some grant money for that.