Hello from an Ancient Geek

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weatherman

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#11734 9-Feb-2007 08:22

Greetings all! I've been a visitor to this great website for some time, and have now joined up. I'm a great tinkerer with all things geekish, and frequently break stuff, so these forums and info pages will be a great resource!

My main "claim to fame" is that I run a private weather station, which uploads local forecasts and data to the 'net, for the enlightenment of my lucky fellow Hawkes Bay-erans. If your interested, pay me a visit at:

www.hbweather.8m.com

The big whinge in my life is (yeah, you guessed it) my internet connection. Its sooo sloooow! When I log on to the Herald website, I get last week's news! We're on the wrong end of a very long, frayed, crappy copper wire here in the country, with litlle prospect of upgrade even to broadish band in the foreseeable future. Wireless? Yeah, right! The nearest VF cell tower is around 5km away, and signal is marginal for VMC or that funny white thing! I've shied away from forking out megabucks for modems and data plans, as I'd hate to make the investment then find the connection dropping out every time I sneeze. Thank heaven my P900 smartphone has a decent aerial, so no problems with cellphone connectivity. Sigh.

Well enough chatter, already, lets go break something................................

George

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#60212 9-Feb-2007 09:22

"Ancient Geek"? Good one!

Welcome to Geekzone...

JAMMAN2110

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#60218 9-Feb-2007 09:51

Mmm broken things.. Welcome.

tonyhughes

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#60220 9-Feb-2007 10:02

Hi Geaorge.... welcome to Geekzone! I too live in HB...

Heres a solution that could be implemented tomorrow for only a few dollars, giving you 37Mbps (tested). Though over larger distances this speed may drop somewhat.

raytaylor

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#60406 11-Feb-2007 11:41

Sorry - I started typing while the wuswug editor was still loading.
Anyhow Tonyhughes, that is halarious. Unfortunatly the ping times would be slow. Lol.

Also if your based in puketapu, I would be interested in running a long distance wifi link over there as a project. I dont think Airnet have any presence over there. Correct me if I am wrong.

Ray Taylor

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weatherman

99 posts

Master Geek

#60461 11-Feb-2007 20:05

Hi Tony, yep, that was definitely a ROFLMAO! The whole thread was an absolute hoot - G-Pod, indeed! There'd need to be protection from SPAM (Slug Pellets and Mice), of course, if this were ever to....er....take off?!?

Hi Ray, nope, Airnet don't quite extend this far out. I'm in a rather tricksy area, with a lot of small but sudden hills. I'd be delighted to help out with any project that could bring better internet connectivity to me and my neighbours, so don't hesitate to get in touch.

Cheers,

George

[Moderator edit (tonyhughes): We generally try and anti-spam email addresses, and prevent the display of personal phone numbers on the forums. Feel free to use PMs / email to exchange phone numbers.]

raytaylor

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#60469 11-Feb-2007 20:58

Ok well to start off,
We need to know how many people are interested in subscribing and where they live, also how much they are interested in the way of capital to put towards the service. We can then work out the best places to put relay stations, and then approach the property owners and find out if they want some free internet in exchange for relaying the signal out to puketapu.

The project could end up as a non-profit organization as I am starting to wonder if telecom will ever get dsl service out there. If people could put forward some good starting capital, the monthly subscription would be about $15-25 per household for about 5gb of data.

So the question is, how many of your neighbors are interested?

Ray Taylor

There is no place like localhost

Spreadsheet for Comparing Electricity Plans Here

weatherman

99 posts

Master Geek

#60572 12-Feb-2007 21:16

Hmm....yes....you're right. it could end up unprofitable. The situation is that half of Puketapu village is supplied through a reasonably short copper feed from Taradale. These lucky souls can get "adsl" of a sort. I and two neighbours are on the extreme end of a looooong copper loop which hooks way out into the country before returning eventually to Taradale exchange via Poraiti!! Also on this cable would be an estimated 30 other households, but strung out along some 40km of wire!! To get wireless internet to these users would mean lots of repeater stations, and could well be impracticable. I know of at least one household that has opted for satellite, as the only way to get fast connectivity!

The other sticking point may be that folk will be unwilling to put up capital toward the project, bearing in mind that there'll be equipment costs, too. So whilst it's a great idea, I don't think it'll fly. But thanks a lot, anyway!