Slashdot Mirror

A page to collect 'long shots' (sorted by distance). The goal is not (only) to break records, but also to get a feeling of what can be done with what.

* 82 miles, Utah, using parabolas and amplification (1500 mW) [WWW]Slashdot 10dec2003, [WWW]Rob Flickenger's blog, [WWW]experiment's site
* 116 km (72 miles), California, using parabolas and amplification ([WWW]Computer World, [WWW]HPWREN)
* 110 km in Poland ([WWW]Slashdot23sep2003), the [WWW]polish article (one of the [WWW]translations)
* 70.5 km, Spain, using parabolas ([WWW]CanariaWireless.net)
* 61.1 km, Downtown Seattle to MtBaldi using 24dBi parabolics, no amps (SeattleWireless)
* 35.2196 miles, Nevada, USA, using home built horn ([WWW]Defcon Wi-fi Shootout)
* 52km, Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) [WWW]http://melbourne.wireless.org.au using 25dBi grid pack to 180 degree slotted waveguide.
* 48 km, Perth (Western Australia), using a [WWW]satellite dish with biquad feed, connecting to a 180 degree waveguide
* 45.0 km, TacomaNode to MtBaldi using a 14.5dBi yagi and a 24dBi parabolic, no amps (SeattleWireless)
* 42.0 km, [WWW]Netherlands, SMC-Senao, 2 * 24 dBi dishes (SNR 17 dB)
* 36.4 km, Belgium, using a SlottedWaveguide, a [WWW]Yagi and a parabola ([WWW]Florenville-Arlon)
* 33.7 km (20.9 miles), California, using parabolas ([WWW]Oreilly)
* 26.4 km , Perth (UK) using 10 dBi omni + Parabola 24 dBi (http://www.consume.net/mhonarc/thenet/msg02844.ht ml)
* 24 km, Lausanne/Switzerland, using 2 Paraolic 24 dBi by [WWW]Submusic Team [WWW]photos and explications (in french)
* 10 miles (TestingTenMileLink)
* 15 km, Belgium, using a SlottedWaveguide and a CardboardHorn ([WWW]LouvainWaterloo)
* 9.5 km, Belgium, using 2 CardboardHorn ([WWW]Liege20020615)
* 5 km, Belgium using DirectionalWaveguide (tin cans), ([WWW]Liege20020401)
* 3.5 km, Belgium, using 2 unmodified LinksysWET11

For an alternative, check out the linksys wrt54g and the wrt54gs.
Linksys has released the full source code and build environment to these routers enabling you to extend the linux install that these are based on.

These devices are not as powerful as the meshbox, but they are much cheaper. They also have more ethernet ports to add a switch/dmz/whatever, although there's only a single wireless device.

Multiple projects have sprung up to extend the functionality of these routers, along with a bunch of informational sites about other hacking projects

1) It's not likely that the 200MHz CPU in that thing is going to handle 54Mbit worth of traffic. AES is not the easiest to calculate...

2) Even so, it's highly likely that a firmware update could *possibly* add this. Will Cisco? My guess is no: they are not incented to make your current device more useful. They'd rather sell a new device.

3) The beauty of OpenSource is that you can add whatever features you want...

Search for adapter in the TitleIndex.

Search for adapter in the TitleIndex.

This is my third segment for Seattle Wireless TV. I learned quite a bit by way of journalism-by-fire. I had fun interviewing Doug, he's used to the media exposure, and -- as you see -- went right through it.

Of course, Doug treated me to a 7 course sashimi meal at Umi in Shadyside, as well as a couple of drinks downstairs at my favorite place, Soba (espresso martini was a good idea, the irish car bomb was not).

Since there aren't any other Wi-Fi related TV shows, tips and suggestions are always welcome, as well as submissions of video content.

Naughty submitter for asking the slashdotters to _stream media_ from his/her/its website. Everyone should do seattlewireless the favor and nab the ~900mb mpeg1 version of the show via bittorrent here.

While this may be true in general, the WRT54G and WT54Gs(same thing with twice the ram and twice the flash). are probably the best two accesspoints availabe. The nice thing is that you can make your own firmware for these devices. I've got custom firmware that does dns caching, vpn, my custom web interface, port forwarding, nat... I doubt there's any high-end devices that allow you to do that asside from put a wireless card inside a computer. if you want more info look at seattle wireless or find sthe sveasoft page

nah, it wasn't copied, but here are some more to check out:
OpenWRT's Firwmare; a minimalist installation, supporting add-on extensions.
Seattle Wireless's extremely informational page on the router.

It's important to note that Sveasoft is not the only group out there extending the abilities of these boxes. Linksys/CISCO releasing the code has allowed many groups a crack at modifying these systems to their hearts content.
Wifi-Box is incredably stable, and offers many options, taht are also being extended.

OpenWRT aims to be very light, but allow you to add packages to customize anyway you want.

More info on the router can be found at Seattle Wireless.

The total cost is less than that of a so-called "commercial" access point, and is infinitely more flexible. Can you run open-source software on that crappy Microsoft router? I knew you couldn't.

Did you count _electricity_ of having a fully blown pc with a pentium cpu and spinning disks into the TCO compared to the electricity taken by a MIPS cpu booted from flash?

Linkys And almost everyone else in the market uses Linux in their access points. If that isn't enough flexibility I do not know what is.

My $40 Netgear access point is silent and very small and has all the features I want, Id like to see someone put together a linux based wifi router for that sort of money

Actually, there are some Linux based AP's for not much more than that. I'm not talking about x86 boxes, with a Wifi card and software to act as an AP. There are cheap hardware AP's that use Linux, and can be extended & modified.

The one I use is the Linksys WRT54G. It's an 802.11G AP, running Linux, and there are several open projects creating firmware updates with nice feature extensions. At the minimum, it allows you to ssh into the box and modify the firewall settings to do exactly what you want.. which is a bit leap over closed AP's.

Some good info on mods for this AP are here: http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/LinksysWr t54g

Linksys Wrt54g

Actually for a techie there's no substitute for a Linux firewall.

Or they could just network the neighborhood, have a few people buy services from the evil corporations, then share those connections with the neighborhood.

Surprised no one has mentioned it, but have you talked to the people at Seatle Wireless? They might have some usefull info for you if you plan to go the wifi route.

Set up Asterisk to try an EnumLookup first, then fall back to NuFone or your home landline using a $16 X100P WinModem from DigitNetworks.

Get all your friends to register their phone numbers with E164.org too, it's a free ENUM service that also verifies people's numbers.

Then if you're really feeling groovy, help a local Community Wireless Network deploy an 802.11a backbone with 11g hotspots all over the place ;) Works great with Asterisk and serexpress. :)

Thanks for the info. Now we know that the Microsoft cards are yet another Prism card. :)

Here is a nice comparison page on wireless gear.

I can give you my opinions too. :)

For Linux, I've been very fond of the "Orinoco Gold" card. They're fairly easy to get online, work very well, and allow external antennas to be attached. I put an Orinoco Gold card in a Netgear PCIPCMCIA adapter (which is incorrectly marked that it only works with Netgear PCMCIA cards), and use that in my home machine now.

My newest love for wireless cards are the Senao "NL-2511 Plus EXT2" card. If you search for the model number, you'll find it sold under other names. Mine came in a white box, with no name, and room for a brand name sticker. :) This card has two antenna jacks on it. I have a whole collection of antennas and adapters that I've used with it. It's kinda fun to sit in a high place with a high gain antenna and slowly turn the antenna picking up different access points every few degrees. It's not really necessary, as with just a little 4dB antenna, I hear plenty of stuff. :)

I hate all the USB adapters. I've never bothered getting them to work on Linux, and with Windows or Mac they suck. Well, they're fine unless you want the connection to stay up. Some of them make Windows hang at boot time if they're attached.

For the card impared, the Linksys WET11 works great. You just attack it to an ethernet jack (or hub), and away you go. :)

I've ordered most of the wireless gear I have on the Internet, so it really doesn't matter that you're in a small town, you can still get it.

If you feel ambitious, there's a small shop in Florida that sells *GREAT* antennas. They're fab-corp.com.

I use an 18dB panel and a 24dB parabolic antenna attached to a pair of Linksys WAP11's as a bridge, for my come connectivity, over a 1/2 mile 802.11b link. You can see pictures here.

The WAP11's have a PCMCIA card built in, which tends to overheat if the location gets hot, so I disassembled one and put a fan on it (see the pic). It's not pretty, but works very well. I've been using it exclusively at home for several months. Occasionally, I'll loose my link, if it's windy, because the parabolic antenna is mounted to a very poor mast, but that's my own fault for not putting up a better mast on the house. It'll get blown about 10 to 15 degrees off, and receive no signal.

When I first set up the wireless link, I brought my laptop to the roof, and it reported 100% signal strength using the parabolic antenna. With a 4dB antenna, I had absolutely no signal. Makes it kind of hard for someone to evesdrop on my signal, unless they also have a high gain antenna and happen to be directly between the two points.

Pretty funny eh? I have a Linksys WRT54G that I use as an access point at home (i.e. not as my main internet gateway). It runs Linux and I think the BogoMIPs is about half what my old DX4-100 running Slackware used to print on startup: not only do they run Linux but they're also getting pretty powerful! The device is pretty damn hackable too.

WiFi should be a condiment, like catsup or salt or paper napkins...

This is the only intelligent thing I've see posted to this story yet. WiFi isnt the business, but its a great way to get people to visit your establishment. If you think your going to get rich WiFi'ing a park and collecting ad revenue your living in 1998. If your one of these guys more power to you.

You'll also find good comparison data on the Seattle Wireless website.

You'll need to know your product ID, but that shouldn't be to difficult to discover.
nk

wardrivers say , and the FBI also says there aren't any known issues. Of course, I'm biased, since I not only wardrive, but operate a location based wi-fi site. Be ready for The World Wide Wardrive coming-up in June!

If you buy from Avaya, you will be subject to vendor lock-in, and you will need a support contract. It's probably $5,000 for the (grossly overpriced) equipment and another $3,000/year for support during business hours M-F.

It would be much smarter, cheaper, and probably better in the long run to get a bunch of WRT54gs, either install the alternative software on them or not, and roll your own configuration tools. Avaya will do their best to fuck you over. I promise.

Is that linux based system available for the WAP as well? (Dunno if it's got enough RAM & flash memory to run&store it...)

Here's a detailed guide on how to do just that.

What 16db means in terms of wireless use is than instead of picking up 4 access points from a rooftop using Netstumbler, I saw 40 different access points, including the BAWRN public node over eight miles away (with clear line of sight but an enormous amount of clutter in the fresnel zone).

I used this design from Seattlewireless.net

I strongly recommended trying this as a project. It's easy and pretty cool.

--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu

Using modified drivers, it would be possible to make the card emit different frequencies or more power, thereby violating the usage licence.

Absolutely true. Linksys's wireless router (WRT54G) is essentially a software controlled radio. Using the ping interface it is possible to enter commands and the router will execute them. One of these is increasing transmit power. I believe most of these hacks and features were discovered because the firmware runs embedded linux and the source code to the router is GPL'ed.

I think Intel is wrong here. Big companies are going to reverse engineer it anyway. The source code isn't needed by them. The small companies that could benefit from the source code wouldn't have economies of scale to compete anyway.

Senao Card info (they appear to be good cards - and Linux support is good since they're Prism-based)

This page lists cards by receive sensitivity. IIRC, the Demarc/Senao/Engenius cards at the top of that list are all Prism-based and have antenna ports.

Here are some to get you started:

Hacking the Linksys WRT54G (how to build new Linux images, compile new tools, etc)

Hacking the Linksys WRV54G (similar to above).

Custom Linux CramFS image for the Linksys WAP54G

Someone's also begun hacking the Linksys WET11

There may be others.

--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu

Here are some to get you started:

Hacking the Linksys WRT54G (how to build new Linux images, compile new tools, etc)

Hacking the Linksys WRV54G (similar to above).

Custom Linux CramFS image for the Linksys WAP54G

Someone's also begun hacking the Linksys WET11

There may be others.

--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu

Here are some to get you started:

Hacking the Linksys WRT54G (how to build new Linux images, compile new tools, etc)

Hacking the Linksys WRV54G (similar to above).

Custom Linux CramFS image for the Linksys WAP54G

Someone's also begun hacking the Linksys WET11

There may be others.

--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu

Here are some to get you started:

Hacking the Linksys WRT54G (how to build new Linux images, compile new tools, etc)

Hacking the Linksys WRV54G (similar to above).

Custom Linux CramFS image for the Linksys WAP54G

Someone's also begun hacking the Linksys WET11

There may be others.

--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu

So go to this page from Seattle Wireless and start modifying your WRT54G to your heart's content.

There are posted methods for either permanently replacing the firmware (but possibly frying it if you do it wrong) or simply overwriting it in RAM and if you reboot simply reloading it without risk of messing up the factory defaults.

You don't even need the sources from Linksys, you can cross-compile.

Linksys may not have -intended- this, for instance you do need an older firmware than is probably shipping on new units, but it is quite feasible.

I use a WRT54G for my home router along with a WET11 bridge to connect to my ISP and have been quite happy with the combination (side note for other WISP users: the WET11 will take a more powerful 802.11b PCMCIA radio card ... I have a WET11 with a 200mW card in it from Demarctech that has the correct antenna connectors for the WET11).

http://tv.seattlewireless.net/shows/December2003.m pg.torrent

Or, just buy a Linux-based Linksys WRV54G for well under $200 with most, if not all the features of this project. No, I don't mean the WRT54g, I mean the WRV54G. Excellent piece of gear, VPN, firewalling, dmz, wireless (wep/wpa), snmp, yadda yadda.

Seattle Wireless
They have a getting started guide. Being Seattle, I am also sure they have an idea of good coffee, too.

The linksys WRT54-G does it all. You can compile and run NoCatSpash for it, and take credit card or other authorization. Check it out at SeattleWireless.net

I've seen this in use and it's quite impressive.

Here's some info copied right off the main page:


SkyNet GNU/Linux is small distribution of GNU/Linux designed for embedded devices such as the Soekris boards. Its targeted specificly as a gateway for community wireless projects such as The Tacoma Wireless Community Network and similar projects like SeattleWireless. With some modification, it should be easily adaptable as a general purpose router, an inexpensive home based wireless access point, or a drop in solution to building temporary mesh networks.

provides alot of free nodes around Seattle. I would check out their website, as well as the NoCatNet authentication software...

How does something like SeattleWireless stack up?

Most of the wrt54g hacking is documented on the seattlewireless wiki

I have an 802.11b wireless link to my ISP that traverses 7 miles line of sight. Performance is pretty good with sub 10mS pings to the ISP router. The biggest problem is that there is only a T1 on the back side and it servers all of their customers in that town. I can tell when the kiddies get home from school ;-)

Things to consider:

1. you must have good line of sight between both ends of the link
2. even minimal trees will block the signal if they are located within the fresnel zone on either end (try google and Fresnel Zone Calculator) I had to get out the ol' chain saw.
3. downlink performance is pretty easy to get, but uplink requires better effective power. Downloads will suffer due to uplink ACK bottleneck. Also, any interactive sessions will drag.

As for my equipment, I have a 24dBi antenna with a 500mW amplifier mounted on the roof. This puts me at the legal limit for radiated power (unlicensed). Inside I have a Linux based CPE router. It uses an Orinoco wireless card. All of this with installation set me back about $1k a year or so ago. With this setup, I usually sync at 2Mbit to 5Mbit rates. Also, rain/fog seems to have no effect.

My primary use is VPN back to work. I primarily use VNC, PuTTY, and Mozilla IMAP; no games. Performance is pretty good, except when the T1 gets saturated. My goal is less than 50mS ping to my company's gateway; and I usually get this during off hours. Downloads range from 60KByte to 160KByte from kernel.org.

The more (real) help you can get from your ISP, the better off you will be. Also Seattle Wireless is a good place to start learning about wireless issues. Bottom line, it can be done fairly easily (if you have the right physical situation) and the performance is much better than the dialup you probably have now. And there are many more extreme working examples than mine.

Good luck!

Most of these enhancements to the stock WRT54G can be accomplished as changes to it's filesystem's ramdisk so that they are not permanent and a simple reboot of the router will get you back to the non-hacked state. If you're feeling brave however, you can try to create your own firmware and commit it to flash at the risk of messing up and creating a small doorstop out of a perfectly good router.

Unfortunately the built in capabilities accessed via it's HTTP interface are a bit slim and simplistic (ie. no SNMP router logging and the built in logging capabilities are VERY basic, only 5 port filters, no Static IP assignments based on MAC addresses, no port triggering) but par for a home/office grade router. Besides, you could always add what you want via your root linux access neh?

Reviews of the router performance have been positive, with little difference in bandwidth in running with WEP on or off (unlike many other inexpensive wireless routers, which have up to a 50% reduction in wireless bandwidth with encryption turned on).

Pretty exciting to have a little router that has the potential to do much more than the usually lukewarm manufacturer's firmware allows.

Dave

I am reading a lot about Linksys, but I don't read nothing about Belkin, who uses the same Broadcom chip in their 54 Mbit access point F5D7130 and router F5D7230-4. They both use a setup very typical to that of Linksys, as noted in some articles (including an article on how to hack the Linksys to customize its system).

If Linksys get it, Belkin surely must get it too ...

Your project sounds very similar in needs to another application I'd discussed with a friend some time ago. When the Civil Air Patrol gets called out on a search-and-rescue mission, they frequently fly over the suspected area with a video camera, sending frames down to the ground with slow-scan TV so that an expert on the ground can identify likely spots to search. The image quality sucks and the data rate is worse.

It'd be nice if these folks could carry a multi-megapixel digicam on the plane, snap pics of anything interesting, and have the images sent to the ground for viewing/zooming on a laptop. The only trouble is, the search area is usually several miles on a side, well over the range of normal 802.11a/b. The solution we came up with involves a cadet on the ground with a high-gain dish antenna being told "keep this pointed at that plane". Cheaper and more reliable than an automatic antenna tracker, for sure. :)

So what we need here is a way to interface with the digital camera. As soon as a photo is taken, we should suck it of the camera's memory and buffer it for transmission to the ground station as soon as possible. Point to ponder: Assume that wireless connectivity is intermittent. Do you transmit the most recent pictures first, or the oldest pictures first, to make sure the base station has the most useful data possible? (LIFO or FIFO?)

Some time ago, I proposed a bluetooth CF module which would appear as a large FAT filesystem. It would have a limited amount of "cache" memory, where images would immediately be written, and then it would then link to a large hard drive sitting in the user's pocket and free the cache for more images. An 802.11b version would suck more battery than bluetooth, but allow longer range operation. The trick isto emulate a filesystem, so firmware hacks aren't needed. (If you could mess with the camera's firmware, you could use an existing CF wireless card and let the camera handle the protocol, right?) Nikon seems to have released a similar product but it's vaporware and only works with one particular camera.

In lieu of sitting straight in the camera's media slot, there's always software that controls the camera via serial or USB. The problem is, most of it seems designed for interactive use. I don't know whether the protocols support lurking in the background to just suck files off the flash card, without interfering with the camera's normal operation. Several of the packages are based on a common code base with a protocol that's fairly well documented, so rolling your own isn't out of the question. Let's assume for the sake of discussion that your camera supports this and suitable software can be found or written.

If you can get by on RS232's peak speed of 115200bps, and if the software can be worked out, there are several hardware options. Several other posters have suggested PDAs with wireless cards. That's a great idea, especially if you can strip off the screen and case to save weight. Some suggested the Soekris net4511 or similar. It's got a low-power 486 chip, serial ports, ethernet ports, and a PCMCIA slot for your wireless card. Or, you could hack up an existing 802.11b accesspoint to run linux and use its console port to connect to the camera. (Note: The Eumitcom-based APs are getting hard to find now. Not a platform with future potential.) There's a similar project for the Apple Airport base station, but it's limited to etherbooting, probably not suitable for this application.

You could use a pair of Ricochet modems dialed to each other (auto-answer on the chopper, and dial from the ground), in which case they simp

Note that code is not available for everything. In particular, the seattle group wasn't able to find publicly-avilable drivers for the 802.11g radio.

It sounds like you're looking for one of these. It's a wireless b/g router, 4 port switch, 125 Mhz MIPS processor running Linux 2.4.5 with 16 meg of ram. You can pick one up for around $100. I'm running snort on mine.

This product was actually covered in a previous slashdot story from a couple of months ago, seen here.. The Seattle Wireless group reviews this product, gives a live video demonstration of it, and basically describes how it works. You can see the video here under the July archive. It's the last segment in the video.

On a similar topic, if you are in the Seattle area on August 30th, you should check out the Wireless Field Day. We will be creating a number of links between various parks in the Seattle area. Plus, we hope to connect to SnowNet and use it to link with Tacoma. I will be demonstrating iChat AV over wireless so people will be able to see the advantages of having a public community wireless network. Be sure to come check us out!

Another mirror (Yes, this link is identical to the parent, but the parent's link is the same as the story. Mirror? Hardly.)

I don't know if there's a similar mod for the BEFW's but if you have a WAP11 (v2.2) there is a hack where you can flash it with the DLINK dwl-900ap+ firmware as they use the same hardware.
The firmware for the dwl-900ap+ is very reliable, has more features than the WAP11 v2.2 and has a much nicer web interface.
In addition, Linksys is terrible about updates and haven't released a firmware update since Dec. 2002 whereas DLink is still updating theirs.