Re: 802.11a with OpenBSD

Robert Hart wrote:
> however we are finding our backbones connecting on our Access Points
> are becoming less reliable due to the significant noise levels from
> other commercial 11b and LOS issues and so we want to move our
> backbones to 802.11a. In Australia Ethernet AP devices are quite
> costly.

We're beginning our iteration of homebrew 802.11a gear to solve the
solve problem.

1st iteration; http://socalfreenet.org/book/view/172
This is old Proxim 802.11a indoor gear that we hacked to use outdoors.

Pros: relatively cheap, reliable, simple
Cons: 5.3GHz only, so antenna gain is restricted (in USA anyway), the
client has to be a PC/SBC with a PCMCIA slot. You'll need Atheros
drivers for OpenBSD (not sure if they're in OpenBSD or not, probably).

2nd Iteration: various at www.socalfreenet.org

We stopped using the Proxim gear so we could move to 5.8GHz and use
higher gain antennas. We replaced the APs with Soekris boards and
3rd/4th gen Atheros based miniPCI cards. We've moved away from building
our own outdoor cases and have installed 5+ www.metrix.net boxes running
pebble (www.nycwireless/pebble).

3rd iteration: tbd, possibly Netgate PowerG8 series based

As our group grows and the demand for installations grows, we're looking
for gear that is even more 'turnkey' so we don't need a *nix geek around
to tweak the config. www.Netgate.com are promising the popular WRAP
boards with an easier config than raw Pebble. And Metrix are hinting at
some major changes also... And the prices keep dropping. Its a great
time to be involved in community wireless :-).

cheers, michael
www.socalfreenet.org
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