Mapping signal strength

Now that the GPS units a few of us ordered are winging their way here
(Alex - you owe me £21 for yours), I've started thinking about uses.  I'll
be making myself a mount for my tablet PC to fit in the car soon, and I
think I'll permanently mount the GPS in the car.  Doug advised me on a cheap
antenna design, so that's sorted.  After seeing Steve's cool software for
mapping signal strength, and discussing it, I thought I'd map out exactly
what I envisaged...

Anyone who's used wardrive will know how it works.  It basically polls every
second for available wireless networks.  It logs any useful info such as
SSID, channel, WEP, GPS location, etc.  I thought it might be interesting to
combine the best bits of Steve's software, and the best bits of wardrive.
Basically, when the tablet PC is in the car, it will constantly poll the
wireless card and log signal strength along with useful things like SSID,
channel, WEP, GPS location, etc.

This means that we could draw colourful maps depicting signal strength over
the Bristol area.  Also, we will get an idea of location for each wireless
network in the city.  This means we can tell them about Consume, and see if
they are willing to participate.  Not difficult for them, and expands the
Consume network at the same time.  What's everyone's thoughts on this?  I've
not looked into how difficult it'd be to get all the data logged with
wardrive/whatever software, so shoot me down if you like.

Andy


Bristol Consume Website: http://consume.andylaurence.co.uk/
Bristol Consume Discussion: http://consume.cyberprog.net/
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