We’ve been playing with PowerStations for a couple of months over at Metrix, and have found them to be pretty cool, but the new NanoStation2 (which we just got in stock) is just awesome. A little bigger than a beer bottle, and under the cost of a good bender, the NS2 is a community wireless networkers best new friend. Waterproof, pole mountable (with zip tie mounting!), 400mW atheros radio, 10dBi built in antenna, External SMA, POE, Linux based OS, and a spiffy LED display.
Fresh out of the box, AirOS is pretty good. I wish it had SSH and iperf, OLSR, and a kitchen sink, but these things will come in time and by other people. You can set the NS2 as an AP or a Client, do WDS, encryption, MAC Clone, bridge, route, and a slew of other things in the simple but AJAX’d web configurator. AirOS is linux under the hood, so you can enable telnet in case you need to set some routes or do something outside of the capabilities of the standard stuff. It shouldn’t take long for an OpenWRT build, so just keep your eyes on the NS2 Support Page.
These should make for an Interesting HackNight next week, and if you’re local and interested in picking one up, just let me know.
We’ve been working on Node SeaCCP, a SeattleWireless node that covers much of Capitol Hill from the 30th floor window of the Westin building, and although my node already has strong signal from the roof, I wanted to see if we could connect with something a bit less beefy than a Metrix Mark II. We (Metrix) recently started carrying the Ruckus Metroflex (it kind of looks like a plastic taco) as a low cost CPE, and I had heard good things about the new Dual Zone (DZ) features, so I thought it might be a good idea to toss one in the window.
Just sticking it in the window, I was able to get 2 (out of 4) bars to swn-seaccp-yagi. Initial tests got about 800k through speakeasy’s speed test. Not bad, but I was sure I could do better. I added an Ikea mesh ‘plate cover’ to the mix, and bumped it up another bar and 2mbps. Not bad at all. I still haven’t spent any time messing with the angle to get an optimal install. I have a feeling if I get the distance right on the reflector, and actually point the thing correctly, I’ll be able to pull down packets a whole lot faster.
Dual Zone, enabled after a really easy one button firmware update, turns the ruckus into a single radio repeater, something that we’ve played with in madwifi-ng for some time now, but is rarely seen in a consumer grade device. I don’t think I’ll have a problem recommending these for people who want to connect on the cheap, and as an added bonus, I’ve knocked 15 bucks off the metroflex for the entire month of April.
As Rob has noted on his blog, Pyramid Linux 1.0b1 is now available for download. For those of you who can’t download, you can purchase a kit preloaded with the latest, tastiest bits or show up at HackNight and get your PXE boot on.
Due to popular demand, we also present to you, the Pyramid Linux Wiki, your one stop shop for support and information on Pyramid Linux and Metrix Networking Kits.
Rob has just posted the latest Metrix Distribution of Pebble over at our support site. This version of Pebble is a lot leaner than previous versions and includes a web interface based on WifiAdmin as well as a ton of other wireless goodies. For OSX users, we’ve also released PXE Boot Tools to help you configure your kits. For those of you that are just interested in the code, check out our patch tree
Rob has a list of the big changes over at Rob’s Notebook
Over at Metrix, we just started carrying the new ZyXEL P2000W SIP Phones. They’re extremely cool devices, and I’m amazed at the quality of the calls as well as the crazy potential of a phone that can just attach to any random network and dial out. I’ve been using FWD as a free PSTN bridge, but have also registered my SIP on e164 and tried out like2fone’s free service as well. I’ll probably have an asterisk box up within the month, but I will need to scrounge around the house for something x86 to build it on since I haven’t been able to find any fx0 minipci yet.
If you want to see what the guts look like, check out the ZyXELPrestige2000W page at SeattleWireless.
metrix.net is now live. If you’re looking for the best open standard, open source wireless kit available, it’s the place to go. I’m not just saying that because that’s my mug on the about page either. It’s because it’s true. Go check it out.
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