SVWUX Meeting Summary from May 4, 2006

These minutes were recorded and posted by Chris Verges.

May 4, 2006 (Thursday)

The May SVWUX meeting was held on May 4, 2006 at the Sonoma Chicken Coop in Campbell, CA. The attendees included: Ian Kluft, Heather Stern, T.R. Fullhart, Brian Litzinger, Tim Utschig, Dave Bryson, Ron Runswick, Chris Verges, Craig Anderson (San Jose RACES), Bill Dale (Milpitas RACES), and Everett Palmer (Los Altos ARES). Minutes were recorded and transcripted here by Chris Verges.

Election of SIG Coordinator

Ian Kluft opened the meeting at 8:00pm PDT. The first agenda item was to find a SIG Coordinator for SVWUX. Chris Verges submitted his name for consideration by the SVWUX membership. A motion was put forth that the election be held by voice vote in the room and seconded. Chris was elected SIG Coordinator in an uncontested vote and chose to title the position as "SIG Coordinator."

Recent connection attempts to SVWUX Los Gatos Repeater

The rest of the meeting began with a discussion about recent connection attempts to the SVWUX Los Gatos Repeater. Brian Litzinger, located ~4 miles LOS from the repeater, is able to get a steady link. The San Jose OES test, ~8 miles LOS from the repeater, saw a strong signal from the repeater but was unable to establish a Layer 3 connection. Ron Runswick, located ~16 miles LOS from the repeater, reports a semi-steady connection.

Brian reported a utility called dctrl which was added to the OpenWRT whiterussian rc3 repeater which controls the effective distance through changing the protocol timers for RTS/CTS. Unfortunately, these settings are lost whenever the repeater resets itself.

To test the timer theory, Brian will reset the dctrl settings on the access point to a 20 to 25 mile effective range. Ian Kluft and Ron Runswick will then assist with testing given that they already have existing installations. An update on this timer theory will be given at the next meeting. Assuming this theory is proven true, a trip to the repeater to upgrade the firmware to rc4 or higher may be necessary.

Ron brought up the issue of 802.11b clients connecting to a mixed-mode 802.11g network causing other protocol-related problems. The idea of switching the network to a full 802.11g and disabling 802.11b access was proposed. The final resolution was left up to Brian.

Chris Verges brought up the issue of possibly using 802.11a for long-distance shots. This would require separate equipment and a trip to the repeater, but would allow for some expansion. This suggestion was tabled for now.

Future repeater sites

In addition to the current repeater site in the Los Gatos hills, the following sites were proposed:

• Crowne Plaza Hotel in Milpitas - Offered by Bill Dale, assuming the Emergency Communications Network project is adopted by Milpitas RACES. Power is available on the roof, but running cables might be difficult. From this site, we can see the most of the south bay area. This site is tabled for now pending the Emergency Communications Network project.
• Campbell - Tim Utschig offered his house as a potential repeater site with a gateway to the Internet. He is currently installing an antenna and will update the group at next month's meeting on the progress.
• The Villages in Evergreen Valley - Offered by Craig Anderson, this is a ham shack located at a retirement community. Craig is looking at making a point-to-point link for the Emergency Communications Network, so piggybacking a repeater on that project is a possibility. He needs to verify LOS to the community, however.
• Mount Uhmunum - William Estrada has offered a spot on his property for a potential repeater site. This location can see most of the south bay area, but we need to double check on availability since William was not at the meeting tonight.

Stratofox WiFi-Net project

The Stratofox wireless network at Black Rock is currently on hold pending Stratofox determining some logistics. It was discovered that the original site in Reno does not have a clear LOS to the KS2R repeater. More volunteers are needed for the deployment teams, however. Interested parties can contact Chris Verges at squirrel at headnut.org.

Emergency Communications Network

Chris Verges and Ian Kluft gave an overview of their experiences at the San Jose OES last weekend. It was decided that it was a valid proof-of-concept test, even though the link did not establish a Layer 3 connection.

For the next phase, Craig Anderson and Bill Dale are going to gather requirements from their respective RACES groups. Hopefully, we will have this information by next month's meeting for general discussion.

Structure of mail lists

After some discussion, it was decided that the svwux at svwux.org list will be the primary communication list for SVWUX. Ian Kluft will migrate existing subscribes from the repeater at svwux.org list to the svwux at svwux.org list and put an alias in place that redirects messages to the new list.

SVWUX Charter

As a SIG of SBAY, creating a charter to define the basic structure of SVWUX's traditions, purpose, rules, and policies is needed. A discussion about what the SVWUX charter should look like is available at SIGs:SvwuxCharterDiscussion. All SVWUX members are encouraged to participate in the discussion. The charter will be discussed in more detail at the next meeting.
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