machspeed2200's blog

On Saturday (7/8/10), Nekron, Shadey and myself went up to Hillcrest to see if we could get a trailer mounted mast connected to the network. It was a successful day! Nekron has written a blog with more details on it here http://www.whatsmoke.com/wordpress/?p=190

After a heap of work out at Woolsheds on Saturday and Sunday, I was able to add the necessary hardware to my mast to get a basic connection to the network. It's still has a heap of configuring and aligning still to go, but at least I'm on! :D

For a close up of the mast mount point, see the Stage 1 blog.

Work on upgrading the Gawler South node began today with an upgrade of the mast.

Off the back of the meeting last night where we were talking about the power output of cards and
antenna gains. I'd thought I'd post how I remember the whacky world of dB gains.

Rule of Thumb: For power gain, every decade of dB adds a zero to the "10".

Today Microtechno, Nekron, and myself spent the afternoon at Microtechno's planned node out at Woolsheds.

I took out my binoculars to have a good visual look around, and was surprised at how good the site is. Roseworthy, the hills of Gawler East and Gawler South, Elizabeth, Para Hills and even the eastern most suburbs were visible! Although everything south of Elizabeth seemed to be too far for a link.

Since putting the Gawler South AP in operation, which at the moment is a Bullet2 with an 8 dB omni, my TV reception was plagued with noise. It was more noticeable on the digital channels (analog can pretty much put up with anything) and only 7 and 9 were watchable. ABC, 10 and One were unwatchable (not sure about SBS, I don't have a UHF antenna).

Two solutions came to mind to fix this issue:
1) Move the AP, as it's mounted under my TV antenna, however this would require a new mast
2) Wrap the Bullet in alfoil

Gentlemen (and Ladies?),

It is with regret that this announcement is not for the sonic recreation of the end of the universe. This, instead, is to announce that the Gawler South AP is now installed!

Taking on advice of fellow members. I got a hold of a Bullet AP kit from Shadey (big thanks) and am in the process of setting it up. It's currently running, albeit on my desk next to me (great for the health :P ). I intend to mount it on my roof on Sunday.

I've adjusted the node map, to show my awesome ap is running (mast height 1m XD ).

Hola from Gawler South!
Machspeed (the trackmania master) here in this first blog. Thought I may as well start using this to note ideas and progress in setting up my connection to Air-Steam.

Since before joining in July I had already been considering connecting, but not realised the extent of the challenge. AS connections just looked so easy on a 2D map!