Newbie, but wanting to take on an adventurous project.

Sheldon T. Hall shel at tandem.artell.net
Thu May 4 09:29:00 PDT 2006


Quoth Raymond Bennett ...
> 
> That's sort of disheartening, I was really excited about this 
> :) I thought it would be easy to find somebody on the other end.

And you yet may.

A three or so years ago, this was a _very_ active mailing list, and SeaWi
nodes were sprouting up all over the place.  Since then, WiFi has, in
general, become both commonplace and easy to use, and, specifically, widely
available as a way to connect to the Internet.  Wardriving isn't necessary
any more, since almost any built-up area has open WAPs available, either by
design or by accident.  You can get it on the WSF ferries.  Guys with
cellphone modems route WiFi over their laptops on commuter trains.  You can
roast hotdogs on the WiFi RF from the dorms at UW.

Since the SeaWi project did not make public connection to the Internet a
priority, it seems to me to have faded somewhat.  Certainly, my own interest
is much less.  The original attraction for me was its possibility as an
alternative to expensive and slow ISDN access to the 'net, but between the
arrival of DSL here and my failure to find a mainline partner for a link,
that attraction has gone away.  I still have the gear, or could get more,
but it's tough to find a reason to set it up.

> As for usefulness, maybe it isn't necesarily useful. However 
> I think it would make it easier for anybody in between to 
> 'plug in' to the SWN network which might widen the scope of 
> the project?

That's certainly true.  Its fun stuff to fool with, and there is a certain
thrill in making some little flea-power radio connect over a long distance,
but beyond that....

Of course, the real question is whether folks still want to connect to the
Seattle Wireless network.

Don't let me discourage you, though.  If you can find a link partner, do it!

-Shel



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