Name: Russell Senior BR Email: seniorr@aracnet.com BR Homepage: BR
Hardware history:
- 2002 June 28: Got started with wifi when I bought a couple Linksys WMP11's and a WPC11 PCMCIA card for the laptop.
2002 July 14: Bought a Proxim RangeLan DS (8430) from AdamShand on July 14, 2002. Got it working on a Debian laptop with 2.4.18 kernel after a short struggle. When I started, got a single low beep when inserting the card. Eventually found "cardctl ident" which gave me the information I needed to put in /etc/pcmcia/hostap_cs.conf. From there, it has been pretty easy, with the exception of figuring out getting it all to autoconfigure itself when starting up. Noticed getting better range with the RangeLan compared to the Linksys WPC11. The external antenna connection has always been a bit dodgy.
- 2004 Fall: From Netgate, a Senao 200mW card and two small external antennas.
- 2004 Fall: Linksys WRT54G, running OpenWRT and as of October 20, 2005, hosting ["Node705"].
2005 September: Four NetgearWgt634u devices, three deployed in an experimental roofnet providing broadband to neighbors, and the other with one of the Wistron Neweb CM9 radios mentioned below, being groomed for an 11a backhaul client. Two of the Wgt634u were purchased in a batch of three refurbs from justdeals.com. One had flakey Flash and was returned (they had no stock for replacement, so I eventually got a refund). Another of the refurbs had a broken antenna wire, for which I got an RMA but decided to keep for its mini-PCI slot and potential utility as an 802.11a client device. Two others I purchased new from Amazon (awaiting rebate).
- 2005 September: From Netgate, two Wistron Neweb CM9 Atheros a/b/g radios.
- 2005 September: From Lenovo, a Thinkpad T42 with Atheros a/b/g radio.
2005 September: From WispRouter, a miniPCI/PCI adapter, currently holding the other of the CM9 radios, installed in my gateway router.
2005 October: From HyperLinkTech, purchased an 802.11a 8 dBi omni antenna, two 802.11a 17 dBi backfire antennas, and 20 feet of LMR400. The omni is currently located on the Mississippi Commons as part of the HistoricMississippiCommunityNetwork. Planning to order a replacement.
2005 October: From CompUSA a ZyXEL AG-225H hotspot finder and USB client device. It uses the ZD1211 chipset, reportedly supported by linux drivers. As of November 1, the device doesn't function under linux. Despite advertising, it does not find 11a networks and its hotspot sensitivity is not strong.
Since Spring 2005, I have been volunteering on the HistoricMississippiCommunityNetwork project, initially the nominal coordinator for the ReconGroup, and lately playing an active role in expanding the network to new roofs. I provided the 802.11a 8 dBi omni antenna currently located on the Mississippi Commons roof and the ladder used to chimney-mount metrix-ed on October 28, 2005. With CalebPhillips, got metrix-ed online and talking to the world. I even worked up the nerve to climb on a roof other than Commons (which is trivial) to help install metrix-west on October 29, 2005. Been working on diagnosing problems in the network, presently metrix-commons refusal to bridge 11a to 11a traffic.
I have been a GNU/Linux user since 1992 and have been involved with the PortlandLinuxUsersGroup since about 2000.
The list of all the pages I've contributed to: