Transmission1

I have just stumbled across this concept whilst looking for something else.

Do any of our members dabble in the network?

Seems an interesting concept, but once all the build and experimenting is completed, I am not sure how useful it would be. I am assuming the hope is to create a nationwide data network supported and maintained by the Ham community, but once established, I am not sure how such a system could be managed or made useful in a world where connections to the internet are plentiful and relatively cheap.

http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/just-st ... -this.html

it is an interest of mine too. Shouldn' this be in the digital section though ?
The idea of a mesh network that is attached /route through localnets is very appealing. I have always thought of it of an extension rather than alternative to the "normal" internet.
There is Pi version too

Moved to the digital section. I'll wrap my own knuckles for that oversight

I looked into this a while ago, I love the idea of an ad-hoc mesh network that keeps on going when the internet goes down, it's right at the heart of what ham radio is all about (in my opinion). Unfortunately, due to the limited number of nodes and the inevitable large distance between them, most nodes appear to be connected to each other using the internet, which kind of defeats the object.

There's a free smartphone app (can't remember the name) which creates an ad-hoc mesh network using your smartphone's built in wifi, and it doesn't connect to the internet, which in my view makes it more in the spirit of ham radio than Hamnet is. If enough people connected external antennas high up and powered an old smartphone from a solar cell to keep it off-grid, I reckon that has the potential to be useful.

The idea of setting up an ad-hoc network sounds interesting, but I'm perplexed by this bullet point on their page:

"You can't use Wi-Fi to connect to a mesh node from your computer, netbook, smart phone or other wireless device."

What value does this idea offer if cheap and widely available client devices can't connect to it through standard protocols ?

I don't know, but i'd guess that mesh nodes don't act as standard wifi access points and you would need to connect via an ethernet cable a conventional wifi access point to allow devices to connect to use the mesh network.

I think the main advantage is that you can operate links under the terms of your amateur license, rather than the highly restrictive license exempt basis of WiFi.

Unfortunately doing so pretty much renders the system unusable for passing internet traffic as the same license prohibits the use of encryption, which has become a fundemental part of the internet... Even Google use HTTPS for standard web searches these days!