[Rfu-barnraising] Re: good news on the WiFi front!

[David Young]

On Sat, Oct 15, 2005 at 11:44:06AM -0500, Danielle Chynoweth wrote:
> I am contacting the city IT dept to see if they would like to use 
> conference volunteers to build the city's downtown community wireless 
> nodes which are sitting in a corner languishing as far as I can tell (no, 
> I am not bitter).

I do not think volunteers should build the city's nodes.  That will be
my advice to the city.  Assembling the city's nodes takes specialized
knowledge that it takes time to teach, and practice to learn.  Careful
attention to detail is necessary.  There is not enough time to learn
to be a successful node-builder, and to build nodes for use, in a
single workshop.  Neither the technology nor nature forgives mistakes,
and neither the city nor CUWiN can afford the costs in materials,
person-hours, and public reputation of inoperational, flaky, damaged,
or ruined nodes.  Let the city staff build the city's nodes.

Dave

-- 
David Young             OJC Technologies
dyoung at ojctech.com      Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933