MB7UBP has been off air for a while because my internet connection failed at home. I spent a short while tracing the problem and it seems that cable connecting the modem/router to the phone had become intermittent so moving the router closer to the phone point got me back on ADSL. However, it also moved the router away from my Ethernet link into my loft shack. Good for surfing, bad for radio.
I have been thinking about re-engineering the network for a while for a number of reasons, so this failure provided some impetus to get on with it. The new plan is to use a wifi bridge instead of the (RF prone) Ethernet cable. There are several plug and play bridges out there aimed at gamers, but these do not support multiple devices (i.e .include a router) at the end of the bridge. I decided to “roll my own” bridge using a Linksys WRT-54G TM re-flashed with DD-WRT.
I have been thinking about re-engineering the network for a while for a number of reasons, so this failure provided some impetus to get on with it. The new plan is to use a wifi bridge instead of the (RF prone) Ethernet cable. There are several plug and play bridges out there aimed at gamers, but these do not support multiple devices (i.e .include a router) at the end of the bridge. I decided to “roll my own” bridge using a Linksys WRT-54G TM re-flashed with DD-WRT.
DD-WRT has a really nice GUI and I have tried it before with various bits of embedded APRS software, but have never had much luck. It seems that the GUI uses so much RAM that the APRS software wouldn’t run. My experience this time was very different, the flashing was seamless, the set up as a bridge went exactly as per the wiki instructions and within 30 minutes I could turn off the wireless in my laptop and access the web via the bridge instead.
All I have to do now is install the bridge in my loft shack I should be back in business!
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