Here is the current status of the Mercado network.

This excerpt from the www.Netequality.org site shows radios installed at Mercado in Bario Logan. The numbers indicate how many users were using that node in the past 24 hours and the lines indicate links between the nodes. The yellow color shows a node with a poorer signal than the others (red would mean a very bad signal, gray means offline). Some signal paths lead to another node a block away is truncated at the top left hand corner.

The Voice of San Diego ran a nice piece on the Chicano Park installation today. Nice photo on the front page: http://www.voiceofsandiego.org. And the article is here: http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=euLTJbMUKvH&b...

Mercado Apartments in Barrio Logon showing the location of the main AP and 4 nodes.

Barrio Logan is a community near downtown San Diego.

Node 1 Install Report
Node 2 Install REport
Node 2 revisited

Mercado Network IP Information

The Mercado network consists of a master node and subnodes. Each subnode consists of an 802.11a relay radio and an 802.11b local AP radio. Each subnode has its own independent subnet and runs its own dhcp server and DNS cache. This allows easier location of problem clients (they can be readily identified by IP).

Each subnode works in a 32 address subnet and follows the same
general layout:

We have a multi-node wireless network installed in a 144 apartment complex with 24 buildings. The one router that binds and rules them all is currently running m0n0wall. This article describes the configuration of the network as a whole and m0n0wall specficially. There were a number of gotchas involved in setting this up, so I lay them out here here in the hope it will save others some time.

The last step of this installation was to mount a plastic figure we found on the roof to the top of the 802.11b omni. We hope he brings good WiFi karma to this node.

Today we installed the second node at the Barrio Logan Mercado site. Practice helps. With three of us working constantly, this installation took 3 hours to complete from start to finish and there's nothing left to do except notify nearby tenants that its available!

The equipment was the same as previous installs with the exception of the 802.11a antenna. Based on advice from the Seattle Wireless group, we decided to try the 5.8GHz Hyperlinktech backfire antenna. At $42 each, these are great value compared to the 5.2-5.8GHz panels we were using previously. And they come with nice mounting hardware that is adjustable on both axis. We're also hoping that they'll provide a bit more gain at 5.8GHz since they're only for that frequency.

The last step of this installation was to mount a plastic figure we found on the roof to the top of the 802.11b omni. We hope he brings good WiFi karma to this node.