Next Meeting is Wednesday April 27th 2005 @ Urban Grind Coffee

• 6:00PM - Introduction to Personal Telco for newcomers.
• 6:30PM - New Nodes and other Announcements.
• 6:45PM - Business followed directly by informal meet and greet.

We usually hold monthly meetings on the last Wednesday of each month. We get together to discuss issues somewhere in Portland. Typically there will be one or two short presentations, a question and answer session followed by general chit-chat. It's all very relaxed so please feel free to come join us.

[http://www.trimet.org/go/cgi-bin/plantrip.cgi?to=2214+NE+OREGON+ST,PO&by=6:00+pm&on=11/19/03&walk=0.6 Find your way] via TriMet to the meeting. It was held at:

{{{Urban Grind Coffee 2214 NE Oregon St. at 22nd. Portland, OR 97232 }}}

Meeting Notes

Scribe: Sam Churchill

About 50-60 people in Urban Grind Coffee shop tonight for the regular monthly meeting of Personal Telco, Oregon’s largest WiFi enthusiast group.

6:00 pm: Darin Eden (President) - Welcomes everyone: Explains that PersonalTelco is a forum to share information. Been around for about 5 years. Tonigh we will talk about the Mississippi Project, unwiring the North Portland community with free access points (as many as possible).

6:10 pm: Nigel Ballard (PTP's outreach and publicity chairman)- Hosts introductions: Nigel goes around the room, spotting new people and asking them to say a few words about themselves, their interests, whether they have nodes or interesting skill sets. Nigel says being unemployed, having a car and having Linux skills are all a plus. About 10 new people speak up.

Nigel says the Tempe Arizona "city cloud" RFP was awarded last week. AOL was one of the 7 that applied for the Tempe build. He said having AOL as a "city cloud" contractor was a new wrinkle. But the AOL proposal was rejected - they forgot to sign RFP!!!

Nigel says competition is a good thing. Qwest and Comcast is not enough. Nigel says Intel is interested in building out an open source software project in Chicago. There problem however; volunteers aren’t bonded or insured, for example.

Nigel will be a speaker at the City Club of Portland, on May 6th. The City Club speech will be on Oregon Public Broadcasting at 7pm that Friday.

6:25 pm: Darin Eden:

Darin says check the wiki web page for the Mississippi Hot Zone Asks if there are any new nodes. Tyler says he moved his mobile node (laughter).

June is deadline for membership to vote for new officers. Darin reads out membership. Says to see Bob Peterson if you are not a member (you need a node).

6:40 pm: Michael Weinberg (Secretary)

New Business: Michael overviews developments on The Mississippi Project. Michael wrote the Meyer Memorial Grant to provide the Mississippi Neighborhood with free wireless access, along the main street (Mississippi Avenue), and ajoining areas

Michael gives a roof report.

• First roof, NARA building on Shaver Avenue (cross street). The building about 2-3 stories high, flat roof, big chimney to mount a 12 foot mast. The second roof, on Fremont, one block off Mississippi (west). Will connect back to building on Shaver. The third building is an attic. With a mast, it might also hit Shaver hub.

Also talking to the Re-Building Center (a large business on the southern section of Mississippi), and business others for possible node inclusion. Michael notified different businesses in the area about The Plan, looking for supporters.

6:50 pm: Mississippi Avenue Committee Reports:

• Rick Lundahl, head of the antenna group, reported that the four people in group are wanting for more recon and topology information before they can decide on specific antennas (sector, panels, omni, etc.) The plan is to use 5 Ghz for the backhaul, and 2.4 Gig for local access Infrastructure group. Is waiting for hardware to get installed. The infrastructure group will coordinate the hardware/software. Hardware will consist of several Metrix 2 boxes from Seattle. They use Soekris embedded boards and have options for 2 radios. The box comes in a water sealed box, with plug connectors, and other things. Software using MIT's meshed Roofnet is being explored (more on that later). Current plans anticipate 6-8 Metrix boxes with 3-4 down Mississippi corridor. Others will connect back to street corridor. Most will be no more than 1 hop to the MARA building which will be the hub with DSL connections..

6:50 pm: Darin Eden: There will be lots of opportunity to experiment and try different stuff out. The Meyer check has arrived. Equipment has not yet been ordered.

In other news, Darin says the Kansas City Centurions, sponsored by the city of Kansas City, is sending a team out to Portland investigating WiFi. They will be in Portland, Thursday, May 12, at 3:30pm at City Club downtown office to talk about community tech stuff.

7:00PM: Break.

7:20 pm:Darin Eden:

Darin explains that an experiment will be performed tonight. It involves the MIT Roofnet software, which is being tested out as a possible deployment for the Mississippi Avenue Project. Darin explains that the software project involves Layer 2 (802.11) and Layer 3 (IP based, internet). This mesh system works between the two and uses a single radio.

The Netgear WGT-634U, a $70 box with a USB port and four ports is the basis of this experiment. It uses a MadFi WiFi embedded driver software, and embeds the mesh software to enable multiple hops. Darin says literally anyone can get this thing running.

Tonight's experiment:

• One Netgear Roofnet hotspot is here in building. The other hotspot is on Aaron Baer’s truck., out of site. They can’t see each other, and we can't connect with The Truck. We are going to use Don’s Bike. Don will bike through the two spots and see if he can form a network bridge and share connections. The radio is both an access point and a client.

don takes off. We are watching the big screen to see if we get a connection....It works!

Much applause and rejoicing.

8:00 pm:Other news:

• Alfred Nurnberger of Logitel.com offered to provide VoIP phone numbers. Nurnberger is the CTO of Logitel which operates their own VoIP gateway in Portland. He will give a block of more than 100 VoIP "phone numbers" to PersonalTelco to utilize in the Mississippi Project. Club members will have some. Most of the numbers will be available to individuals along Mississippi. That will enable them to get "free" phone calls. Cheers and applause. Rick Lundel announces that the first Saturday in June (June 4th) will be a payday at the Urban Grind coffee shop. Playday times will run from 12am to 4 pm. Playdays are always great fun and a good opportunity to learn and ask questions. There will be lots of gear and "classes". Brandon Smyth said he is setting up free Wireless will use Netgate with a backhaul radio in Sherwood. Is going in near city hall next Monday. The city hopes to unwire nearby parks and provide other services.

8:30 pm: Meeting Ajourned.

Internet Simulcast Information

The IRC channel for the meeting is on server irc.freenetworks.org at channel #ptp.

• Sound recordings of some past meetings are archived: http://ptp.thebasement.org/meetings/

Meeting notes are available for:

• MeetingOctober2004

• MeetingSeptember2004

• MeetingAugust2004

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• MeetingJune2004

• MeetingMay2004

• MeetingApril2004

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