Howdy, I just subscribed to this list last week. I plan to attend the Dec 5 meeting so I can meet some of y'all in person.
I've been kicking around the idea in my head of starting a co-op structured neighborhood LAN in my east-bay neighborhood (the Richmond Annex). I've got a small thing going now, where one neighbor uses my Airport access point and the other is just wired into my LAN with CAT-5. I'd like it to be bigger... the idea of cheap net access for my entire block gets me really excited, especially since its something concrete I can give back to my community using my best skills. However, while I'm an expert at TCP/IP networking, I'm an RF novice, and I suspect I have a lot to learn. Are there some useful resources people on this list can point me towards? I've found a surprising lack of HOWTOs and such during my (admittadly brief) google searches. I'm specifically interested in these questions: - what's the best hardware to use for access points? - how can I plan how many repeaters I need based on the topography? I'm near the crest of a hill and am willing to erect a mast to get the antenna up higher. - are there organizational structures alread designed for this? (note, I'm not thinking net topology, I'm thinking people-structure. how do I collect money to pay for the bandwidth and upkeep? what are optimal membership structures? what can I reasonably expect to delegate to others early on?) - how much of my own time should I budget to get this thing going? I realize many of these questions will have answers unique to my situation, but I figured pinging this list should help me get to the answers faster. best regards, -john. -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
