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Build Your Own Solar Powered Hotspot
hode writes "Popular Science has a how-to article up on turning a backpack into a portable, solar-powered Wi-Fi hotspot. Possible uses include providing Wi-Fi access for a road-trip caravan." From the article: "Its secret ingredient: the Junxion Box. Plug a cellular-network card into the book-size open-source-based device, and voil--instant Wi-Fi hotspot, with speeds averaging around 700 kilobits per second. To power the box, I wired it to a 1.2-amp-hour battery and dropped both into the Voltaic Systems backpack, which has a built-in solar charger."
This thing, as made in the article, costs over $1000, I would have thought a project slashdot would link to would have somebody rigging up their own solar panels instead of paying $230 for a bag with solar panels on it and setting up their own system (mini itx or some such) instead of paying $700 for a Junxion Box.
You can build your own EV-DO/Wi-Fi router for much less than the cost of a Junxion box.
This solar powered hotspot is $1,000. Maybe an alright price for a consumer product, but a little much for something you'd build yourself, here's a cheaper solution:
$189 - Gum Stix Connex 400xm-bt, a small xscale system running embedded linux
$25 - CFstix, an expansion board for the above system allowing connection of Compact flash cards
$70 - Netgear MA701 802.11b Wireless Compact Flash Adapter
Subtotal: $284
That ought to be a good replacement for the junxion system in this case, for 40% of the cost.
As for the solar power, you might want to use the same Voltaic Systems bag they used in the article, but you could deck out a bag you already have with solar panels and such and it might be a little cheaper. Hell, if you wanted you could put their solar panels and batteries in your bag, they sell them seperately!
No you can't. The latency on cell phone based access is lousy. 500ms pings is about the best i've seen.
trees and leaves are full of water and therefore eat wireless signals. not that it wouldn't work, just not as well during the summer when trees have leaves. also, the solar cells would be shaded by the trees.
now, substitute the tree with a tethered hydrogen filled mylar balloon.... you'd just have to check for vine growth on the tether every so often.
fear is the mind killer
You get a Linksys WRT54G (or other hackable) router and put openwrt on it, put it in "client" mode (so it acts like a client) add an external antenna if needed so you can pick up some open wifi hotspot out there (left open for others to use of course) or starbucks etc... You can get up to 2 miles easy outdoors.
Then on the other end, you plug in a normal router, just pretend that the WRT54GS is a cable modem (it supplies the internet, DHCP and all that on it's ethernet ports).
Everyone logs into the normal router and off you go!
If you have a system that gets internet in the boonies, like satellite internet or something, just turn on connection sharing and connect a normal router to your ethernet. It should all run on a car battery without running it down for weeks so don't wory about solar.
The linksys and other router really don't take much power so you could run them off a large solar panel for 24/7 access.
Here's some links for lazy people:
http://openwrt.org/ClientModeHowto
http://wiki.openwrt.org/ClientModeHowto
http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000690043237/
Burning Man already has WiFi internet access. I've used it myself.