[MLB-WIRELESS] grumpy people

[Tony Langdon]

> I welcome Lucas critical analysis but I think it confuses Free
> and Non Profit. I agree that its almost impossible to build
> anything worthwhile for nothing. I'm sure though that a
> motivated and community run non profit organisation can do great
> things with very exacting standards. For example CFA as we speak
> doing a job in NSW that few organisations could match. 

True.  it is possible for a non profit organisation to do an excellent job,
if it's properly managed.

> about this from the Age article less than 3 months ago. Becoming
> Tony Langdon takes time <grin>

Hehe, would you really want that outcome?  I'd be very careful what yo wish
for. ;-)  

As for getting up to speed on radio - read, read, read... Oh, and tinker.
To do on the "real band" of 2.4 gHz means playing with real wireless gear.
Amatuer operation is better, as you can then play with analogue systems and
get a better "feel" for the underlying RF medium (digital can hide so much
from you).
> 
> The other great thing is that you can use beer to improve radio
> signals! I'm spending a bit of effort in trying to work out if I
> can link to people 3 and 5 kms away. If we get twice as many
> people involved then i only need half the effort in aerials etc
> and the network we make will be better and tougher.

Indeed.  Similarly, it's known that a few beers is good for erections (of
the antenna veriety!). :-)  Either way, networking of the human kind is only
going to help the project along.

> So instead of engineering for long distances it makes sense to
> recruit to shorten the distances. Personally I contacted my
> council to start getting more people involved but this takes
> tiiime. And the biggest stumbling block that I see is making it
> easier to understand and do. For every level of difficulty that
> we can remove we make a quantum leap in the amount of 
> potential participants

Indeed.  There's several levels of difficulty for potential participants,
and they can be summarised as follows:

1.  Financial (every man has his price - that he'll pay for gear).
2.  Gathering gear (some people will chase auctions all year, others just
want to hand over cash for a kit).
3.  RF (Some of us are happy to much around with antennas, cable and
soldering irons, others need a packaged solution)
4.  Hardware/Linux (getting those &^$%&^% things going! :) ).
5.  Networking (becoming part of the whole :) ).

As for me, the first two are the most significant barriers to entry.
Wireless is low priority, so less money allocated to it.  And I'm not one to
hunt around for bits.  That's why I hang out on mailing lists.  I don't fart
around with auctions, and rarely participate in group purchases (but have
done so in the past).

RF wise, I think I can handle that. :-)  The Linux side is an unknown
quantity.  I'm familiar with the OS, but never fiddled with wireless
(reminds me, must fiddle with the AP experiment - got a couple of 3 day
weekends coming up for that :) ).  Besides, I like that sort of challenge.
:)

Similarly with networking, been doing that for years, but wireless will add
a few interesting challenges. :-)
> 
> more nodes == good imho and it takes time and community building

Yeah, let's be patient. :)

And 'll try and keep my other activities out of the band :-)

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