Broadband-Hamnet / HSMM-Mesh Network

You mentioned a QST article, but did not say what month. Any help finding it would be appreciated.

73, Larry KK6MF

 

Sorry about that. July 2013

 

Here are the HSMM-MESH fully functioning routers, ready to go!



The rest on little BELKIN UPS power supplies, with 7AH Gel Cels inside. These are ideal for the routers and the plugs fit right in.

 

I love those little 12V uninterruptable power supplies. I need to get another or maybe two more.
The charge controller and the power supply are built on separate boards, very hackable.....

 

They can have many uses, and if done slowly can be cost effective.

I have my Internet being shipped to a WinLink RMS computer at the local radio club about two blocks away.
Using two dish antennas the route quality stays at around 95 to 100%, thus 10 MB going to the computer.
If the Internet fails I still have a LAN connection via TeamViewer to access the station and manually move
email.

The latest firmware BBHN 1.0 really makes the MESH NODES a lot easier to start with for configuration.

Just one simple use of some old LinkSys routers.

 

Old Routers are a limit

The one thing that bugs me, is the whole concept is based on old routers. What new router works? When these old routers all fail, what's next?
I would probably put up an antenna if you could just use windows or linux and a wifi card. I really have no interest in buying a router I used to own 10 years ago, and long since went to the big dump.

 

You need to ask yourself WHY are they based on the old routers? The answer is most people already have one laying around, linux, onboard memory (32/mb), external antennas, exisitng OPEN wrt project. Now if you looked at the download page you would see that you can use more then just these "old" routers.
firmware for a non-mesh usr5461
firmware for a non-mesh wa840g
firmware for a non-mesh we800g
firmware for a non-mesh wr850g
firmware for a non-mesh wrt150n
firmware for a non-mesh wrt300n_v1
firmware for a non-mesh wrt54g and wrt54gl
firmware for a non-mesh wrt54g3g
firmware for a non-mesh wrt54gs
firmware for a non-mesh wrt54gs_v4
firmware for a non-mesh wrtsl54gs
And the SVN has everything you need to port it to any equipment you see fit so knock youself out and build the firmware for what you want. Also you can find these "old" routers for next to nothing if not free.

Also look into the ubuntu or PI build that is also in the forums of hsmm-mesh.org if you want to just run linux and wireless card to add the whole computer to the mesh as a node like you want to do.

 

You want new, then buy all means look into Ubiquiti or the myriad of commercial offerings.

You want to experiment, learn, make use of legacy equipment, and do what amateurs can do very well, then try it.

The reason they are used is the use of Linux based firmware and the ease of modification. Newer routers are pretty much a no go for anything but what they were built for.

A bit of web searching and you would be surprised at the amount of Mesh Nodes in use by amateurs.

 

Here is what you need to know to set up a PI on the mesh.
http://hsmm-mesh.org/hsmm-mesh-foru...ware/topic-458-hsmm-mesh-on-raspberry-pi.html