Getting Started

This document was ripped from seattle wireless and mangled... please feel free to mangle it further.

Hopefully this quick start guide will help out

Be Informed

Join one of the Mailing Lists. Add yourself to the Volunteer List. Talking to people and communicating is extremely important. There should hopefully be lots of people who want to help you out. Ask questions. Read through Frequently Asked Questions. If you want to know how routing works and what a node is, see: Ip Allocation and RoutingForBeginners?.

Get on the Node Map

Get on the Node Map. Even if you are NOT up yet, join, currently the official node map is at [nodedb] Add yourself as non-operational so at least people can contact you and get working.

Setup the Hardware

Get a access point and a wireless card. In order to connect to your own internal home network you will most likely use a vpn session. The great news about this is that to connect to your internal network you theoretically can connect anywhere. See Virtual Private Network Setup for how to setup a well organized VPN. Check out the Hardware Comparison for more info on different wireless APs and cards. A great first step is to set up your access point as part of the JuneauWireless? network and you will have a Dx Node; see Access Point Setup and Building Dx Node. See Node for detailed info. You can always add an additional 802.11b card with directional antenna to link it to another node later.

Link to Other Nodes

Check the Node Map or the Nodes Available page frequently to see if you are near other nodes. If you are, contact the node maintainer and find out if and how you can get a link up. If you need help, there are lots of people that are interested in helping set up links. If you've got a really good view and can see several nodes, you may even get loaner gear to help get you up faster. If practical WDS will be used, (i.e. any systems w/ juneauwireless ssid set and running the hostap drivers), this will allow seemless roaming. (As this is not always practical due to distances between ssid, and using separate tunnels... but an option nevertheless).

Getting Help

If you have any questions make sure you ask! If you need help setting up equipment, check out the Volunteer List or ask some one on the list to help you out. Once you get an answer to your question and you think that info would be helpful to others, put it up on the web site for the next person to find. Maintaining the wiki is key because it helps quell redundant questions and provides a good knowledge base for everyone involved.

Final Words

Remember if you can't connect immediately to someone, still put up a node for the hope that in the future it can be live

Category Communication