Semper WiFi

Roblimo writes "Armed Forces personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan increasingly use the Internet to communicate with their familes back home, but there are not nearly enough computers and connections for them. Lt. Phillip Geiger, Medical Officer with the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, suggested using a privately-funded, long-range WiFi network to help troops stay in touch. The idea has grown from there, all funded privately with cash and equipment donations. Joe Barr has the details on NewsForge (which, like Slashdot, is part of OSTG)."

Comments

Troops

[Klar]

Things like this are great. Troops fighting for us deserve to be able to communicate with their friends and family to keep them sane. This really reminds me of the http://www.gmail4troops.com/ project. If you have an extra gmail invite around in you inbox, why not give it to someone who could use it to receive video and pictures from loved ones.

"Better than MARS" FAQ

[dogfart]

MARS stands for Military Auxiliary Amateur Radio System. It's a long standing ham radio network designed to assist military personnel with contacting the folks back home (among other things military-like).

FAQ is at http://public.afca.af.mil/LIBRARY/MARS1.HTM . Another article explaining the Air Force MARS is http://www.asc.army.mil/mars/history.htm

Re:"Better than MARS" FAQ

[Just Some Guy]

MARS was a godsend when I was on a "cruise" to Somalia in '94. For those too lazy to read up on it, it basically worked like this:

1. You'd type out a phone number and a short message (limited to something like 64 words) to a loved one and save it to a floppy in a special format.
2. Give said floppy to the guy onboard who was running our end of the MARS network - basically, one of your shipmates entertaining his off-duty hobby.
3. He'd batch up all of the outbound messages and blast them out via packet modem.
4. Your message would be routed through HAMs until it reached one in your local area code, who would call your recipient on the phone and read the message to them.
5. If they wanted to reply, the HAM would transcribe their message, route it back to the stateside MARS station, and broadcast it back to the ship.
6. The shipboard MARS guy would print out a few pages of messages, cut the page into strips (one per message), and send them out via the intra-ship mail envelopes.

The total turnaround time from when you first typed your message to when you received the response was on the order of 48 hours. Compared with a roughly two-month turnaround on snail mail, it just practically like making the phone call yourself.

Did I mention that this was completely free of charge for both of the end parties involved? I've never actually met a MARS operator, but if I do, first drink's on me.

As a side note, MARS is directly responsible for me working with computers. I was a surgery tech on ship, but I knew enough programming to write a little BASIC app to run on our 8086 laptop to let anyone type their message, apply the appropriate constraints on it (checking for word length, number of words, etc.), and correctly save it to a floppy. People in the department would wander by, type their little message, and get a nice surprise two days later. My coworkers were happy enough to tell my boss, who was good enough to point out that while I didn't seem to like being a surgery tech, I definitely liked programming, and I should get out of the Navy and go to college to study CompSci. Ken Schnapp, in the unlikely chance that you read Slashdot: thanks, man!

Old Computers

[stateofmind]

If you have older computers lying around, fix 'em up and donate them to local families who have family in the war.

The military has special sites setup for where the families can get free webmail, inet access, etc..

I took two old P3-450s and gave one to my wife's friend and another to the local Marine Reserve base, that they can pass out to other family members.

Josh

Re:Call me ignorant perhaps..

[julesh]

It's a pun on this

Re:11,000 dead civilians in iraq

[staticx0085]

However, US soldiers who enrolled (i.e. all US soldiers in Iraq), did so willingly...they're hired killers and they're this administration's accomplices in starting this illegal war and invasion of a sovereign country.

Wow, you really are ignorant. Given the choice, most people wouldn't risk their lives overseas just to "see some action." Most of these people are doing it because they have no other choice. It certianly doesn't pay well, especially for the risks involved. Maybe you're somehow not aware of current tuition costs, but I know of alot of people who cannot even afford to go to a state or community college. Going into the military for a few years then having them pay your tuition is a great way to go to college and be able to get a job that is better than being in the military. Consider yourself lucky that you didn't have to take this route and don't condemn other people who have no other options. You can disagree with the war in Iraq, but the troops did not make those political decisions.