Thanks Dave, This is a thoughtful response and a well stated position. - Dale WA8EFK On 2/4/2013 1:25 PM, Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ wrote:
At his request I am relaying the following message from Rick Kirchhof, NG5V of the HSMM-MESH development team in Austin.
Dave K1ZZ
*From:*Rick Kirchhof, NG5V [mailto:ng5v@arrl.net] *Sent:* Saturday, February 02, 2013 12:38 AM *To:* Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ *Cc:* Woolweaver, David ( Dir, WG); Stratton, John (WG Vice Dir) *Subject:* Status of 9cm HSMM-MESH project
Dave,
The recent board meeting must have stirred more interest in the 9cm HSMM-MESH project. This week, I have received email from two Directors or Vice Directors asking about the ability to use Ubiquiti equipment. It is very encouraging to hear of this level of support within ARRL leadership.
We have a concern. It is the same one previously expressed where general ham membership will start to think and focus on equipment that is not for sale, and firmware that does not yet exist.
To restate our current status: The 9cm equipment from Ubiquiti has been hand-loaded and manually configured with settings that allow them to interoperate with other HSMM-MESH networks. The process to set up the software currently involves a number of command line edits to the firmware load. The equipment works well (very well) but can't be set up or used by the average ham. In short, it currently isn't functional for anyone outside the core development team. Since specific unique identifiers are required for each device, a copy of our modified firmware from one Ubiquiti device won't configure the next one without the same manual steps.
Current set-up and information web pages don't work with the firmware needed for the Ubiquiti equipment. More work is needed to finish the firmware and to create the user friendly web page used on the Linksys 2.4ghz equipment. Anyone who has ever purchased and set up a Wi-Fi network at their home can easily do first time setup of an HSMM-MESH router. In fact, setting up a mesh node for initial use involves about 1/3 of the steps needed to do a home Wi-Fi network. The complexity of setting up a Wi-Fi router or the even simpler process for an HSMM-MESH node is hidden by the web page that controls the process. This is by design as we fully intend for the process to be easy and consistent for all users.
I have received a request to arrange a group buy of the new hardware. This is an end-game task and is very premature at this point. Discussion of export-only equipment in a new band by the general ham population would be extremely counterproductive at this time.
We have much work to do before Ubiquiti equipment can easily be converted from factory status to HSMM-MESH nodes. I am pleased to report that a short article about using HSMM-MESH networks during the recent Big Bend Ultra-Marathon was already submitted to Steve Ford. We expect this item to be a nice spotlight on the project. It deals only with existing gear and current firmware, discussing ease of setup and use. Our next article for QST will be more in-depth and cover the process to start from zero, choose equipment, load the firmware, and begin using mesh networks.
I would like to ask for your help in getting this information to the ARRL board. We very much appreciate the continued support but the time for discussing the 9cm project outside of board meetings has not yet arrived. If general ham discussion and requests for support become widespread, our time will be diverted to email, forum discussions, web site maintenance and requests for equipment suppliers instead of developing and releasing the new firmware.
Please let the leadership know that they can best support his project by allowing us to develop to completion before sharing the information broadly.
I will be pleased to answer any questions you have.
73,
Rick Kirchhof
NG5V
on behalf of the HSMM-MESH development team
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