[Cu-wireless] RE: Cu-wireless digest, Vol 1 #114 - 9 msgs
Shannon McMahon
shannonm at allthingscomputing.com
Mon Apr 29 10:36:38 CDT 2002
Hey everyone,
I am new to this CU-wireless project, and I am anxious to find out more.
At this very moment I am debating over what 802.11a/b equipment to buy
for use in my home. What are your thoughts on cisco? I was looking at
their equipment because the AP supports many different antennas, and the
pc cards support a lot of OS's.
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
-----Original Message-----
From: cu-wireless-admin at lists.groogroo.com
[mailto:cu-wireless-admin at lists.groogroo.com] On Behalf Of
cu-wireless-request at lists.groogroo.com
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 12:19 AM
To: cu-wireless at lists.groogroo.com
Subject: Cu-wireless digest, Vol 1 #114 - 9 msgs
Send Cu-wireless mailing list submissions to
cu-wireless at lists.groogroo.com
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/cu-wireless
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
cu-wireless-request at lists.groogroo.com
You can reach the person managing the list at
cu-wireless-admin at lists.groogroo.com
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Cu-wireless digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. organize! (Zachary C. Miller)
2. Re: organize! (Ralph Johnson)
3. Re: organize! (Sascha Meinrath)
4. Re: organize! (niteshad at whopper.de)
5. More suggestions (was re: organize) (niteshad at whopper.de)
6. Re: organize! (Zachary C. Miller)
7. Re: organize! (David Young)
8. good buys (Ralph Johnson)
9. Re: good buys (David Young)
--__--__--
Message: 1
To: wireless at ucimc.org
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 13:37:46 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Zachary C. Miller" <wolfgang at wolfgang.groogroo.com>
Subject: [Cu-wireless] organize!
We have a ton of volunteers and almost no organization. I think it is
time to apply some structure to our meetings so we can leverage all
our energy into getting concrete things done.
I propose that we develop a schedule of _focused_ topic oriented
meetings. We should have more than one meeting each week with the
expectation that not everyone will come to all the meetings but people
will come to the meetings that interest them.
Proposal:
1) Seminar/Theory Meetings - Every Tuesday at Zach's
I propose we meet every Tuesday from 5:30pm-7:30pm at my house for a
different lecture/discussion each week from someone (typically from
our group) about a different technology or other area of expertise.
I would take care of organizing a speaker each week. We would combine
the session with a dinner which would be either potluck or order out
(e.g. pizza). 1 hour of eating, 1 hour of lecture.
Example Topics:
* Structures for a CU community wireless network
* Basic TCP/IP and OSI network theory
* OSPF and other TCP/IP Routing Protocols
* NoCatAuth
* Microwave Physics and implications for Antenna design
* Practical strategies for Antenna mounting on houses
* Wireless Roaming and Ad-Hoc Mesh networks
* Embedded router hardware overview
* Antenna design overview
* Wireless networking in a campus setting (NCSA's wireless network)
* NCSA's research on developing embedded wireless routers for ad hoc
networks
* etc. etc. etc.
2) Affinity Group Meetings
We should form affinity groups to take on specific tasks and the
affinity groups should determine their own meeting schedule. I
propose the following groups:
1) Standard PC based wireless router development - work with the
Dell Optiplexes that are currently sitting at my house and make a
bootable CD-ROM based router that supports N wireless cards, N
ethernet cards, and is as self configuring as possible. Work done
on these platforms can be directly translated to various embedded
platforms like PC/104 or the linux STB or even just a regular PC
in a weatherproof container at a later date.
2) OpenAP based wireless router development - work on developing a
linux/OpenAP based wired<->wireless router that is as self
configuring as possible and speaks OSPF. Modify the case to allow
the connection of an external antenna.
3) Antenna R&D - research, design, build, test, document antenna
designs. Do the field testing of antennas.
4) Node installation and testing - Using whatever tools are
currently available from the other groups, install antennas and
nodes at various locations so that there is a real world testbed
platform to play with routing protocols and to test throughput
and antenna designs.
5) Policy group - learn about routing protocols and establish some
policies for the wireless network. How will IP address blocks be
allocated. What routing protocols will be used. What authentication
schemes will be used? What traffic flow schemes will be used? What
aspects of the policy will be mandatory and what will be suggested?
How will channel usage be tracked/allocated? Develop a database for
information about nodes. What kind of statistics will we generate?
This is all network administration kind of stuff. Planning,
tracking, coordinating.
6) Outreach group - Work on the website. Prepare snail mailings
soliciting interest/funds in/for the projects. prepare FAQs on
safety and other such issues for concerned members of the general
public. Work on acquiring grants or donations of equipment.
These groups need not meet every week. They can meet once a month, or
whatever. Perhaps groups can meet on a rotating basis after/during/as
the sunday meeting. Groups should make some effort to have their
schedules be non-overlapping so that people can participate in more
than one group.
3) Reportback and orientation meeting
I propose that the first 30 minutes of the Sunday meetings be used
for orientation of new members and reporting by the affinity groups
of what they are working on and what their needs are. This part of
the meeting should only take up the first 30 minutes or so and then
perhaps we can have a rotating affinity group or two meet or have a
general work party depending on the scheduled the affinity groups
choose.
Comments? Support? Lame?
--
Zachary C. Miller - @= - http://wolfgang.groogroo.com/
IMSA 1995 - UIUC 2000 - Just Another Leftist Muppet - Ya Basta!
Social Justice, Community, Nonviolence, Decentralization, Feminism,
Sustainability, Responsibility, Diversity, Democracy, Ecology
--__--__--
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 14:36:15 -0500 (CDT)
From: Ralph Johnson <johnson at cs.uiuc.edu>
To: wireless at ucimc.org, wolfgang at wolfgang.groogroo.com
Subject: Re: [Cu-wireless] organize!
I agree that more organization is needed.
I propose that we develop a schedule of _focused_ topic oriented
meetings. We should have more than one meeting each week with
the
expectation that not everyone will come to all the meetings but
people
will come to the meetings that interest them.
Or that they can come to. Early Sunday afternoon is a bad time for me.
I'm interested in several topics, but I have been thinking most about
this.
6) Outreach group - Work on the website. Prepare snail
mailings
soliciting interest/funds in/for the projects. prepare FAQs
on
safety and other such issues for concerned members of the
general
public. Work on acquiring grants or donations of equipment.
You keep mentioning money. It will be hard to get money from other
organizations unless there is an organization for them to give it to.
Perhaps "CU Wireless" doesn't have to be an official corporation, but
it at least needs to have some sort of charter with recongized leaders.
Organizations that give money want to know who they are giving it to.
Sometimes you can piggy back off another group. For example, perhaps
people would donate money to the media center. I bet we could get a
grant to give wireless at the high schools and middle schools. But
if you want people to give money to us, not to some other organization
that is working with us, we'll need an organization.
I will add a topic.
For this project to succeed in the long run, the ISPs will need to think
of us as good guys, not competitors. We need to figure out a way for
people using the CU wireless system to buy a small channel to the
internet. This will not only get them on our side, but it will
eliminate
the need for the group to raise funds for large shared pipes to the
internet.
-Ralph
--__--__--
Message: 3
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 14:42:33 -0500 (CDT)
From: Sascha Meinrath <meinrath at uiuc.edu>
Cc: <wireless at ucimc.org>
Subject: Re: [Cu-wireless] organize!
On Thu, 25 Apr 2002, Ralph Johnson wrote:
> I'm interested in several topics, but I have been thinking most about
> this.
>
> 6) Outreach group - Work on the website. Prepare snail
mailings
> soliciting interest/funds in/for the projects. prepare FAQs
on
> safety and other such issues for concerned members of the
general
> public. Work on acquiring grants or donations of equipment.
>
> You keep mentioning money. It will be hard to get money from other
> organizations unless there is an organization for them to give it to.
> Perhaps "CU Wireless" doesn't have to be an official corporation, but
> it at least needs to have some sort of charter with recongized
leaders.
> Organizations that give money want to know who they are giving it to.
>
> Sometimes you can piggy back off another group. For example, perhaps
> people would donate money to the media center. I bet we could get a
> grant to give wireless at the high schools and middle schools. But
> if you want people to give money to us, not to some other organization
> that is working with us, we'll need an organization.
Several of us are working in loose affiliation with the UCIMC -- perhaps
we should make this a more formalized relationship since it would
address
this issue.
--Sascha
--__--__--
Message: 4
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 00:49:54 +0200 (MEST)
From: niteshad at whopper.de
To: cu-wireless at lists.groogroo.com
Subject: Re: [Cu-wireless] organize!
I agree with Zach and others that we need a bit more organization in
order
to make better use of our resources, interact with the community (be
they
the general public or ISPs). However, I have enjoyed what Sascha
called, at
the last meeting, our anarcho-syndicalism. I think that we should
actively
keep in mind this structure, which mirrors the structure of the network
we
want to implement, when we consider how we will organize.
I support Zach's idea of a dedicated Seminar/Theory meeting.
However,
rather than arbitrarily assigning a time to it, I suggest that we poll
the
list for candidate times. It may also be a good idea to re-evaluate the
time
for our Sunday work meetings. Perhaps there is another time which still
works for the regular members, but would allow others greater
opportunity to
participate.
Finally, I suggest that we maintain a running discussion of what
the
project or agenda we will tackle at the next General meeting, so that
everyone
involved will know what's to be done before they show up to the meeting.
(Yes, the to-do list is forthcoming on the web page, Sascha.)
The one problem that I forsee is in the area of incorporating
CU-Wireless
for the purposes of receiving donations of either money or hardware.
Such
incorporation, even as a 503(c) non-profit, would impose a structure on
the
group that would be anti-thetical to our current anarcho-syndicalist
model.
Just my $0.02.
regards,
Mark
--
Sent through Global Message Exchange - http://www.gmx.net
--__--__--
Message: 5
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 01:07:10 +0200 (MEST)
From: niteshad at whopper.de
To: cu-wireless at lists.groogroo.com
Subject: [Cu-wireless] More suggestions (was re: organize)
Regarding the Seminar/Theory meetings, perhaps it would be a good idea
to
encourage the speakers to submit a version of their talk suitable for
posting
on our website. This way, we will build a base of knowledge which we
(and
other wireless groups) can access on a more permanent basis. The only
bugbear is the usual one of how to represent equations in HTML...unless
MathML
has really come a long way.
Also, I advocate that rather than the typical lecture model, we
try to
implement a more active learning model. Educational reseach has shown
that
active learning models, such as group work or discussion result in
better
comprehension and knowledge retention by the students. Plus, it's just
plain
more fun!
regards,
Mark
--
Sent through Global Message Exchange - http://www.gmx.net
--__--__--
Message: 6
Subject: Re: [Cu-wireless] organize!
To: niteshad at whopper.de
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 18:28:44 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: cu-wireless at lists.groogroo.com
From: "Zachary C. Miller" <wolfgang at wolfgang.groogroo.com>
> However, I have enjoyed what Sascha called, at the last meeting, our
> anarcho-syndicalism.
Believe me, I'm fully dedicated to maintaining such a model. I'm just
trying to encourage the organization of the syndicalist part of that
equation by instigating the formation of affinity groups around
specific work tasks.
I offered a specific time to the Seminar/Theory section because I was
volunteering to host and organize it. If the time/plan I suggested
isn't convenient for others I encourage them to pose alternate
plans. I think it is important to establish stable times for various
purposes.
The model I proposed with the affinity groups was just a suggestion
based on work I see being done by various people. Affinity groups are
just groups of people who want to accomplish the same goals
together. I think it is important for a large monolithic group like
ours to split into smaller working groups to get things done. This
isn't non-anarchic, this is syndicalist.
I'm trying to encourage discussion on how we might acheive the work
goals we want to achieve. Lets enumerate those goals and find out who
is interested in doing what kind of work and how much time people are
willing to commit and then lets have some meetings. Maybe some of the
affinity group formation and meeting time setting will happen at a
sunday meeting or offline but lets keep everyone aware of it.
What I'd like to see as a result of my email is lots of people chiming
in about what they are interested in working on so they can find each
other and work together outside of the monolithic sunday meetings and
with some openness to the general wireless group.
> The one problem that I forsee is in the area of incorporating
> CU-Wireless for the purposes of receiving donations of either money
> or hardware. Such incorporation, even as a 503(c) non-profit, would
> impose a structure on the group that would be anti-thetical to our
> current anarcho-syndicalist model.
Independent incorporation or affiliation with the IMC (itself
organized around participatory consensus based focus groups) would not
neccessarily impose structure on the entire project as long as we
agree to incorporate or affiliate on terms that are compatible with
our existing model. Anarcho-syndicalism doesn't mean unstructured or
unorganized, it just means no heirarchy or implicit power.
I don't see any reason to worry about this until some actual
fundraising effort is underway and I don't see us doing any actual
fundraising for several months (until we have some working testbed
nodes up and running). So lets not worry about this question too much
right now, lets focus on organizing ourselves to get vital R&D work
done so we can build a wireless network.
--
Zachary C. Miller - @= - http://wolfgang.groogroo.com/
IMSA 1995 - UIUC 2000 - Just Another Leftist Muppet - Ya Basta!
Social Justice, Community, Nonviolence, Decentralization, Feminism,
Sustainability, Responsibility, Diversity, Democracy, Ecology
--__--__--
Message: 7
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 22:14:26 -0500
From: David Young <dyoung at onthejob.net>
To: wireless at ucimc.org
Subject: Re: [Cu-wireless] organize!
Reply-To: dyoung at pobox.com
I like your proposal. I suggest two changes:
New participants' introduction/orientation occurs at the Tuesday
seminar, which becomes our general meeting. Affinity groups may be
give updates at that meeting.
No general meeting Sunday. Let an affinity group use Sunday.
I would really like to hear what is going on with wireless in NCSA.
Also, if Mark who teaches at Parkland will teach about routing, that
would be great.
I would be pleased to lead a session where a Pringles can antenna
and the 5dBi omni antenna are built. Also, I can talk about NetBSD.
And very shortly I may be an expert on the 802.11 standard, whether I
want to be or not....
Dave
On Thu, Apr 25, 2002 at 01:37:46PM -0500, Zachary C. Miller wrote:
> We have a ton of volunteers and almost no organization. I think it is
> time to apply some structure to our meetings so we can leverage all
> our energy into getting concrete things done.
>
> I propose that we develop a schedule of _focused_ topic oriented
> meetings. We should have more than one meeting each week with the
> expectation that not everyone will come to all the meetings but people
> will come to the meetings that interest them.
>
> Proposal:
>
> 1) Seminar/Theory Meetings - Every Tuesday at Zach's
>
> I propose we meet every Tuesday from 5:30pm-7:30pm at my house for a
> different lecture/discussion each week from someone (typically from
> our group) about a different technology or other area of expertise.
>
> I would take care of organizing a speaker each week. We would
combine
> the session with a dinner which would be either potluck or order out
> (e.g. pizza). 1 hour of eating, 1 hour of lecture.
>
> Example Topics:
> * Structures for a CU community wireless network
> * Basic TCP/IP and OSI network theory
> * OSPF and other TCP/IP Routing Protocols
> * NoCatAuth
> * Microwave Physics and implications for Antenna design
> * Practical strategies for Antenna mounting on houses
> * Wireless Roaming and Ad-Hoc Mesh networks
> * Embedded router hardware overview
> * Antenna design overview
> * Wireless networking in a campus setting (NCSA's wireless network)
> * NCSA's research on developing embedded wireless routers for ad hoc
networks
> * etc. etc. etc.
>
> 2) Affinity Group Meetings
>
> We should form affinity groups to take on specific tasks and the
> affinity groups should determine their own meeting schedule. I
> propose the following groups:
>
> 1) Standard PC based wireless router development - work with the
> Dell Optiplexes that are currently sitting at my house and make a
> bootable CD-ROM based router that supports N wireless cards, N
> ethernet cards, and is as self configuring as possible. Work done
> on these platforms can be directly translated to various embedded
> platforms like PC/104 or the linux STB or even just a regular PC
> in a weatherproof container at a later date.
>
> 2) OpenAP based wireless router development - work on developing a
> linux/OpenAP based wired<->wireless router that is as self
> configuring as possible and speaks OSPF. Modify the case to allow
> the connection of an external antenna.
>
> 3) Antenna R&D - research, design, build, test, document antenna
> designs. Do the field testing of antennas.
>
> 4) Node installation and testing - Using whatever tools are
> currently available from the other groups, install antennas and
> nodes at various locations so that there is a real world testbed
> platform to play with routing protocols and to test throughput
> and antenna designs.
>
> 5) Policy group - learn about routing protocols and establish some
> policies for the wireless network. How will IP address blocks be
> allocated. What routing protocols will be used. What
authentication
> schemes will be used? What traffic flow schemes will be used?
What
> aspects of the policy will be mandatory and what will be
suggested?
> How will channel usage be tracked/allocated? Develop a database
for
> information about nodes. What kind of statistics will we
generate?
> This is all network administration kind of stuff. Planning,
> tracking, coordinating.
>
> 6) Outreach group - Work on the website. Prepare snail mailings
> soliciting interest/funds in/for the projects. prepare FAQs on
> safety and other such issues for concerned members of the general
> public. Work on acquiring grants or donations of equipment.
>
> These groups need not meet every week. They can meet once a month,
or
> whatever. Perhaps groups can meet on a rotating basis
after/during/as
> the sunday meeting. Groups should make some effort to have their
> schedules be non-overlapping so that people can participate in more
> than one group.
>
> 3) Reportback and orientation meeting
>
> I propose that the first 30 minutes of the Sunday meetings be used
> for orientation of new members and reporting by the affinity groups
> of what they are working on and what their needs are. This part of
> the meeting should only take up the first 30 minutes or so and then
> perhaps we can have a rotating affinity group or two meet or have a
> general work party depending on the scheduled the affinity groups
> choose.
>
> Comments? Support? Lame?
>
> --
> Zachary C. Miller - @= - http://wolfgang.groogroo.com/
> IMSA 1995 - UIUC 2000 - Just Another Leftist Muppet - Ya Basta!
> Social Justice, Community, Nonviolence, Decentralization, Feminism,
> Sustainability, Responsibility, Diversity, Democracy, Ecology
> _______________________________________________
> Cu-wireless mailing list
> Cu-wireless at lists.groogroo.com
> http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/cu-wireless
--
David Young OJC Engineering from the Right Brain
dyoung at onthejob.net Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933
--__--__--
Message: 8
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 23:11:31 -0500 (CDT)
From: Ralph Johnson <johnson at cs.uiuc.edu>
To: wireless at ucimc.org
Subject: [Cu-wireless] good buys
TigerDirect has some $50 wireless PCMCIA cards.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_slc.asp?Id=350
2
Are any of these particularly good deals?
http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/HotNews is a list of good
buys that people have discovered.
http://www.superpass.com/price.html has lots of antennas that are
reasonably priced, including an 8dBi omni for $59.50 and a 13dBi
directional panel for $35.
-Ralph
--__--__--
Message: 9
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 00:18:23 -0500
From: David Young <dyoung at onthejob.net>
To: cu-wireless at ucimc.org
Subject: Re: [Cu-wireless] good buys
Reply-To: dyoung at pobox.com
I don't think any Linux/*BSD driver supports Proxim RangeLan.
The Lucent card will accept an external antenna through a fragile,
expensive connector. The internal antenna will always leak some
radiation. Lucent cards do not have a Prism chipset.
I know nothing about the IBM card, but it is likely to have a Prism
chipset. Prism chipsets support HostAP mode. I don't know if IBM's card
accepts an external antenna.
The $80 SMC 2652W wireless access point can be flashed with Linux OpenAP
software.
The antennas are worth considering. Do you think their operating
temperatures are given in Fahrenheit or Celsius?
Dave
On Thu, Apr 25, 2002 at 11:11:31PM -0500, Ralph Johnson wrote:
> TigerDirect has some $50 wireless PCMCIA cards.
>
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_slc.asp?Id=350
2
> Are any of these particularly good deals?
>
> http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/HotNews is a list of good
> buys that people have discovered.
>
> http://www.superpass.com/price.html has lots of antennas that are
> reasonably priced, including an 8dBi omni for $59.50 and a 13dBi
> directional panel for $35.
>
> -Ralph
>
> _______________________________________________
> Cu-wireless mailing list
> Cu-wireless at lists.groogroo.com
> http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/cu-wireless
--
David Young OJC Engineering from the Right Brain
dyoung at onthejob.net Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933
--__--__--
_______________________________________________
Cu-wireless mailing list
Cu-wireless at lists.groogroo.com
http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/cu-wireless
End of Cu-wireless Digest
More information about the CU-Wireless
mailing list