"Black Mountain Link 1" "Allison North SJ Link 2"

With my new wifi card in hand I decided to take my laptop and gps for
a little drive around Fremont. I was hoping to find a few free or at
least public for-pay hotspots. I figured I'd see a mostly home AP's
and hopefully a few with names that I'd either recognize or would
stand out (like "tmobile" or "boingo"). Well, the access point noise
in Fremont is immense. I logged 850 separate ssids after driving a
2km on a side squarish loop. The only public hotspots I found were
the fremont library (catch-and-release NAT hack) and Mission Valley
Roasting (didn't stop to try it).

Two ssids did stand out and I'm curious what they could be. Both
ssids include the names of mountains that have large antenna farms on
top of them. Both are 802.11g with a 11Mbits/sec data rate. Any one
know what these are? Some local experimenter's group? A commercial
venture? Google has a hit or two for each of these, but the hits are
just other folks wondering what these are too.

"Black Mountain Link 1"
"Allison North SJ Link 2"

-wolfgang
--
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/

Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:
> With my new wifi card in hand I decided to take my laptop and gps for
> a little drive around Fremont. I was hoping to find a few free or at
> least public for-pay hotspots. I figured I'd see a mostly home AP's
> and hopefully a few with names that I'd either recognize or would
> stand out (like "tmobile" or "boingo"). Well, the access point noise
> in Fremont is immense. I logged 850 separate ssids after driving a
> 2km on a side squarish loop. The only public hotspots I found were
> the fremont library (catch-and-release NAT hack) and Mission Valley
> Roasting (didn't stop to try it).
>
> Two ssids did stand out and I'm curious what they could be. Both
> ssids include the names of mountains that have large antenna farms on
> top of them. Both are 802.11g with a 11Mbits/sec data rate. Any one
> know what these are? Some local experimenter's group? A commercial
> venture? Google has a hit or two for each of these, but the hits are
> just other folks wondering what these are too.
>
> "Black Mountain Link 1"
> "Allison North SJ Link 2"
>
> -wolfgang
> --
> Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/

Just a guess, but since these are well known transmitter sites, perhaps
they use wifi as part of echolink (or similar) interface. It would take
a bit of googling, but you could see if any of the ham gear at these
sites have such features.

Black Mountain is quite a haul from Fremont. Allison is not so far. I
see from your website you have hiked the East Bay hills. You can visit
Allision doing that hike from Ed Levin to Mission Peak. [It helps to
have a partner so you can make this a one way trip. From a timing
viewpoint, you want to start in Fremont and end in Milpitas since they
lock up the parking area at Ed Levin.]]

(E-Mail Removed) writes:
> Just a guess, but since these are well known transmitter sites, perhaps
> they use wifi as part of echolink (or similar) interface. It would take
> a bit of googling, but you could see if any of the ham gear at these
> sites have such features.

Thanks. Knowing one keyword like "echolink" is vital to get the
mystery to unravel.

> Black Mountain is quite a haul from Fremont.

Yup. It is a clean shot from my roof though. There are lots of
places one can get a good view of it.

> Allison is not so far. I
> see from your website you have hiked the East Bay hills. You can visit
> Allision doing that hike from Ed Levin to Mission Peak. [It helps to
> have a partner so you can make this a one way trip. From a timing
> viewpoint, you want to start in Fremont and end in Milpitas since they
> lock up the parking area at Ed Levin.]]

Yup, we've done the Levin hike. I even got to carry the dgps radio,
lead-acid battery and gps. This was back in the days of SA, so a
tracklog would wander +/- 50meters without differential.

http://www.wsrcc.com/alison/misspeak/levin/pics/7.html

Maybe its time to load up the backpack with a laptop and various
antennas and see what I can see from the top of Mission Peak or
Mt. Allison.

-wolfgang
--
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/

Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:
> (E-Mail Removed) writes:
> > Just a guess, but since these are well known transmitter sites, perhaps
> > they use wifi as part of echolink (or similar) interface. It would take
> > a bit of googling, but you could see if any of the ham gear at these
> > sites have such features.
>
> Thanks. Knowing one keyword like "echolink" is vital to get the
> mystery to unravel.
>
> > Black Mountain is quite a haul from Fremont.
>
> Yup. It is a clean shot from my roof though. There are lots of
> places one can get a good view of it.
>
> > Allison is not so far. I
> > see from your website you have hiked the East Bay hills. You can visit
> > Allision doing that hike from Ed Levin to Mission Peak. [It helps to
> > have a partner so you can make this a one way trip. From a timing
> > viewpoint, you want to start in Fremont and end in Milpitas since they
> > lock up the parking area at Ed Levin.]]
>
> Yup, we've done the Levin hike. I even got to carry the dgps radio,
> lead-acid battery and gps. This was back in the days of SA, so a
> tracklog would wander +/- 50meters without differential.
>
> http://www.wsrcc.com/alison/misspeak/levin/pics/7.html
>
> Maybe its time to load up the backpack with a laptop and various
> antennas and see what I can see from the top of Mission Peak or
> Mt. Allison.
>
> -wolfgang
> --
> Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/

FYI, there are competing versions of Echolink, such as IRLP, eQSO, and
Wires-II. I've only stumbled upon Echolink and IRLP in my travels. In
theory, you can talk PC to PC using these schemes (at least Echolink),
but that seems kind of dumb. I do like the idea hooking up repeaters
across the internet, which doesn't require line of site like NFM links.
Of course, in an emergency, these links will probably fail.

I did a google of Echolink and wifi, and got way too many false hits to
see if anyone is using wifi to do such interconnects, but it certainly
is feasible.

Regarding DGPS, ya know, it's ok to be just a little off when you
record those trails. ;-)

I have this matra that I only want to carry one thing, so I have a
cellphone-type PDA, but it is the older type that doesn't also have
wifi. However, a PDA with wifi would be handy for sniffing all sorts
of wifi in remote areas. I never cease to be amazed at where wifi pops
up, such as railroad facilities, utility companies (power lines), etc.
Nellis Air Force Base has a rather powerful wifi network used fby
aircraft mechanics. The Las Vegas Metro PD has a wifi network.

So much RF to sniff, but you just can't lug a notebook everywhere.

Regarding what you can "see", I've been fiddling with two programs:
SPLAT! and GRASS. Both can be used to find line of site from locations.
SPLAT! is trivial to use, but not very accurate. All I did was fix a
compilation flag to get SPLAT to work. GRASS is another story.