LuckyLab : 30th January 2002BR Next Meeting: MeetingFebruary2002

Thanks to everyone who attended the January meeting, and a special thanks to Jim Binkley for his presentation on MobileIp. In case you missed it, his website can be found at http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~jrb/.

Feel free to add and edit these notes as many ears make a better listener!

Scribes: ChristianSeppa and SamChurchill

Focus Meeting

• The move toward Ghetto Space appears to be taking steps forward although no space has been obtained yet. A core group is willing to front the cost and sign the papers. Group members expressed support for such an idea by agreeing to kick in 5-10 bucks a month each toward such an end.
• Pioneer Square node is up and running! Test it out and provide feedback as it is our first high-profile node!
• Action Item: Propaganda person is to determine the legal status of the PTP logo.
• PTP in the press: New article in Red Herring? Portland Business Journal? Someone please confirm/update these reports if you have more info.

• Linux image with NoCat HostAP etc. now ready! Linux bootable CD/Floppy w/ Host AP and NoCatAuth pre-installed approching readiness. Sylistic image with HostApMode drivers and NoCatAuth reported to be ready.

• All other SIGs resoundingly quiet this month.

General Meeting

• LucasSheehan unveiled "TheSign" and received many kudos.

• A wide assortment of patch and yagi anteannae were on display.
• Intel donates 2 APs for PTP to install in needful locations.

• We still need offical statements of cooperation from EasyStreet.

• Possible affiliation with Boingo raised. The question: Should PTP nodes be listed in their database? Not a great deal of consensus reached on this topic.

• Sean (EliabHelon) and DonPark will now be watching over the maps database. The title of Map Bitch remains unclaimed.

• Cliff Cox, John Harvey and Robert Kelley showed up to do some show-and-tell about their mobile-ap-in-a-pelican-box, wap11 phones, and a summary of wireless activities in Bhutan and at Burning Man.

The location, date and time of the next meeting is always available on the MonthlyMeeting page. We also have archives of the MeetingNotes from all past meetings.

Sam's Clif Notes

Sam Churchill, here. I took notes and pictures at the meeting and will post them here soon. As Adam notes, Jim Binkley described characteristics of Mobile IP. Here's a bit more about Clif Cox.

[http://www.efn.org/~clif/ Clif Cox], who founded the [http://www.efn.org Eugene Free Network], displayed his $2000 Pelican Brief: a Cisco AP with POE injector, 1 watt amp, a timeout mechanism and other goodies stashed in a Pelican case. It looked similar to the pole-mounted units that Matt Peterson has created.

Clif lives in Eugene and has been involved in [http://sdots.com/eugene/ocf2.html the Eugene Country Fair], for many years. About four years ago he "unwired" it with Richochet radios. He found a nearby farm house who was willing to share their phone and relayed the signal to the Country Fair bouncing off four radios with two radios in trees. A laptop would have two serial connectors (PC card serial adapters provided a second port)relayed the signal. The wireless network used the STRIP protocol from the MosquitoNet project.

About three years ago he teamed with John Gilmore, [http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,38521,00.html the cypherpunk co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation], who paid for the satellite dish and service from [http://www.tachyon.net/ Tachyon]. John also wrote the book on [http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?sourceid=7354618&isbn=1565925203 Cracking DES]. The 2-way satellite link can provide 256K up nearly anywhere. About 3 years ago they used in at Country Fair and it has been a backbone at Burning Man the last few years. [http://www.eugeneweb.com/~bm/ibm.html The satellite runs at 2 Mbit/sec downstream and 300 Kbit/sec upstream]. PlayaNet's wireless network runs at 1 to 11 megabits/sec and covers the entire Playa area.

Cliff is soon leaving the country to provide wireless service to Bhutan, about 60 miles east of Nepal. The Bhutan government wants to provide communications services in outlying areas so they are setting up point-to-point telecommuncations towers, linked via 802.11b and 2-way satellite dishes. I'm not sure whether the Tachyon will be used for the Bhutan uplink or not.

Clif showed some SpectraLink and Symbol phones they will be using for Voice over IP. These are cordless phones that use 802.11b. Both Proxim and Symbol make them. Frequency hopping phones are also available but the best use H.323 protocols and DSSS.

Clif took me outside and showed me his car which was hotter than anything at the Portland Auto Show. He had a 2-way Tachyon satellite system in the back seat. The dish was so oval it looked like a surfboard. I'm stoked.

How about [http://flightlinux.gsfc.nasa.gov/ FlightLinux] for [http://ipinspace.gsfc.nasa.gov/ IP in Space]! The University of Surry launched with first webserver in space in January, 2001 with [http://ipinspace.gsfc.nasa.gov/documents/Small-Sat2000Paper-html/ U/O Sat 12]. [http://ipinspace.gsfc.nasa.gov/general/concept/related.html OMNI] follows up in 2002. Disco nation!

http://www.azinet.com/starshine/twosat4.gif

Photos and more later. - Sam Churchill

PS: Reason number 42 to dislike Windows. I downloaded 6, (six!) photos to my antique Celeron machine that had a hard drive filled to capacity. The photos wrote right over the OS and that was the end of my photos. And pretty much everything else. I eventually got the machine working but what a pain. I'm a point and click kind of guy but I'm beginning to warm up to The Linux Way. But forget the photos. They're gone for good.

Next: MeetingFebruary2002

[CategoryMeetingNotes]