Post TU Comms and Networking

[Lightspeed]

NR, I think this proposal is for local community communications.

Normally point to point would be a matter of a few hundred yards

Range could be extended to say10Km using amplifiers and high gain antennas.

Good point about document security SD

[Steve]

This sounds like a great start to a community preppers resource. You could add controlled access to a central "knowledge base", a shared calender / organizer , local email, a bulletin board, and a local "News" website.

It will be invaluable. I imagine the traffic being along the lines of:

"Mrs P at number 47 has a surplus of onions to swap for spuds"
"Mr X at Muddy Farm is looking for help with the harvest"
"Ms Y needs a 10mm metric nut for her bike"

It would be useful right now.

[River Song]

Steve < RS

You hit the nail right on the head. Think Community Preppers Resource.

SD < RS
Security can be as high or low as you want it.

For example I spent most of yesterday running up my own web server installation on my target machine. It looks and feels just like any commercial web server. (It runs something called Apache)

Even without the Public internet you would still have a collection of 'nodes' in a village-mesh
who can access the local-web (for want of a better description) - you can then password/encrypt to your hearts content.

Also yesterday I tried to move this experiment onto my target box - a little Raspberry Pi.
(My son-in-law said "I didn't know you had an inner geek mum" !!)

Ran into a few problems - I'll let you know you it goes today

Allons-y

[Skean Dhude]

What I was thinking on was adding IP cameras to the mix. Spreading them wider than you could on your own with piggybacking on others wifi. That way you could keep your eye on your remote stash and not rack up expensive phone bills.

[River Song]

SD < RS

Clever man - A great idea

[River Song]

OK - so the Mesh idea didn't run on the Raspberry. Software didn't run at operating system level.
So without the Operating System, thinking about local-village applications makes no sense ......
or does it??

I moved o to thinking about the applications FIRST and worry about Meshing later.

Managed to get a complete PBX Phone system running on the little Raspberry. It's not as powerful as a full blown BT exchange but it can handle 10 concurrent calls.

I can connect a bundle of smart phones using WIFI and a soft-sips-phone package and they can call each other.

Next I'm working on outbound and inbound trunks to around-the-country (whilst the internet is working)
and then think about pieces of wert string and tin cans when the Interweb goes down.

I'll keep you posted

Allons-y

[Skean Dhude]

Smart phones, a mini PBX and WiFi. Now that sounds like a very useful project. I'd be very interested in that.

[River Song]

Ok So i've now got the package up and running.

Complete PBX on a card --- sadly I can't fit it into an Altoids Tin - just a bit big.
Mounted it in a box.

4 Extensions -- 2 on iPhones, 1 softphone on iMac and 1 softphone on Windoze.

1 Outbound Trunk // 1 Inbound Phone Number.

The extensions can call other extensions or make outbound calls
Incoming call hits a voice menu where they can select their extension.

There's all kind of other stuff on this such as reminders, wake-up calls etc etc

So it works. I'll document it soonest and let you have it.

Meanwhile
LS --- the Yagi aerial looks nice. I note it has no 'pin'. How would you suggest this piece of kit is used?

The problem with the existing set up is that the 'extensions' need to be in wifi distance which is not that good unless we put a huge aerial up or something

Suggestions please?

Allons-y

[Lightspeed]

RS you have my full respect for pulling this off. being able to use smartphones in a grid down environment is a stroke of genius.

How do you mean no pin on the antenna? I don't understand.

Wifi yagi antennas are very small indeed. The only issue is siting them high, but without excessive lengths of cable back to the transmitter. ( At wi-fi frequencies coax cable eats lots of radio energy as a function of its length) Maybe a wi-fi re-transmitter ( range extender) unit would be the way to overcome this.

Keep the ideas coming. This is an excellent project.

PS I like SD's thoughts on integrating Wi-Fi web cams too.

[River Song]

I'm still working on the manual so that everyone can have a go. It will be a few more days.
One of the weaknesses so far, is that your VOIP phone or Softphone must be in range of your wifi but probably isn't too far.

I'm going to be looking at an access point which would give me around 3 to 5 km distance]which would cover the whole village.

meantime, I was wondering whether you could attach a PMR Radio or UVR5 to the phone network.
Came across this which got me thinking.,,,,,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS8aAG7fBaY