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On October 30, we were honored to present our work and technology to Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India and a staunch supporter of bringing technology to rural areas, and Mr. John Chambers, CEO of Cisco. The presentation was given as part of the inauguration of Cisco’s newly-built Globalization Centre East, located in Bangalore.
The presentation, given by Jim Forster, a distinguished Cisco engineer, a leader of Cisco’s Digital Inclusion network (DINet) Project, and an AirJaldi director and supporter, included an overview of one of our basic CPE nodes, and a live video conference - carried out using two of our nodes - between Jim and members of our team located outside the demonstration theater.
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Jim Forster presenting AirJaldi to Dr. Abdul Kalam (former President, India), John Chambers (CEO, Cisco), and owen Chen (President, Cisco Asia Pacific )
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Very often I'm being asked how can we aim such long distance WiFi links.
A relatively simple way of doing this would be to use a high-power analog signal transmitter fed into the antenna on one side, with a spectrum analyzer identifying that signal on the other side.
In our global village world - we can find the above for less then $300 (total for both sides), which conventionally would cost way over $10,000:
Buy a high-power 2.4Ghz video transmitter from:www.chinawholesaleonline.org
At first - I was a bit worried to give my credit-card on an unknown Chinese web-site. For once, I'm happy that I was brave enough. The owner of that site - Adam, had dispatched the transmitter immediately, and I got it days later via DHL. However, the unit was faulty, it would often not turn-on, the frequency would not be stable and would shift with temperature and the power was less then 300mW.
For a moment I thought to myself that I deserved it for buying from such an unknown source. However, I have emailed Adam, and he had quickly <"read more", to continu>
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Here is the small transmitter being measured with a spectrum analyzer to establish the power. Look at the nice and stable analog signal which is so easy to spot on the far side.
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Yahel and I have recently made a number presentations on AirJaldi and our work. Press here to join Yahel on a tour of our Wireless Clouds in the Himalayas – a talk given at UC Berkeley’s Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS ), on October 11.
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I'm happy to announce that all 4 wireless routers which where installed on AirJaldi's main tower in Upper-TCV school, where replaced by a single router from the Czech republic!
Thanks to the generous donation of Mr. Lukas Hudecek from IteQ s.r.o of his newly designed quad-radio router.
The robust cast-Aluminum weather-proof enclosure with a massive heat-sink, hosts a MikroTik Router-Board 523A board.
The 4 high-quality Reverse SMA RF connectors at the bottom are an excellent choice for the most demanding outdoors installations of both 5.8 and 2.4 bands, while maintaining a port-density better then what bulky N-type connectors offer.
We feed the router with 48v (it's more like a 56v with batteries fully charged) over a very long PoE drop, through the IP67-rated Ethernet connector.
A proprietary optional connector is added for special applications, such as daisy-chaining additional routers, connecting a video camera etc.
The router is loaded with an AirJaldi Mesh firmware, based on Kamikaze release of OpenWRT.
More details can be found on Itec's web sites:
http://www.outdoor-wireless.com/
Hopefully - we where able to provide Lukas with valuable feedback, which will contribute to an even better version of this router in the future.
Many thanks Lukas !
We look forward for future collaboration...
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Dinesh & Rana install the IteQ router on the TCV Tower.
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Pauli Närhi, a student at University of Oulu in Finland, has just completed a very productive half-year internship with us. While in Dharamsala, Pauli focused mostly on developing a battery charger suitable to the very demanding realities of rural India (and rural areas elsewhere). Pauli has just left us, but the power stays! Read Pauli’s own account of his work and the “Jaldi Charger”. You can also download a detailed description of the Jaldi charger hardware design. |
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Since I attended the AirJaldi conference held in Dharamsala on October 2006 only virtually, while sitting in Berkeley, I decided to physically join Yahel for his talk in San-Sebastian, where he was invited to speak at the San Sebastian Municipal Summer Course about AirJaldi's work. |
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The Indian Express, one of India’s largest English language newspapers, carried an article about AirJaldi in their Weekend edition, the Sunday Express.
While some of the personal details in the article are not always accurate ;^), we thought it would be nice to share it with you. You can view the full article, “Dharamshala Wi-Fi has an Israeli network ” on India Express’ website. Do visit other sections of this website and feel free contact us for more information about our work.
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The establishment of a training and capacity building center is one of the central components of our vision . The first steps towards realizing this vision were made during the last few weeks.
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This post is long due, but like they say - better late then never.
Following the AirJaldi conference (end of October 2006) David Rowe came to visit us in Dharamsala, all the way from far Australia.
David is leading a unique and exceptionally important project of revolutionary potential: Free Telephony Project
While many of us are still getting used to, and learning the concept of Free / Open Source Software (F/OSS), David's project introduces additional confusion, yet equally innovative concept: Open-Source-Hardware
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Yesterday, following days of intensive preparations, we installed a relay node at Ashapuri, a high point 50 km. east of Dharamsala. The very affordable and sturdy solar-powered relay is directly linked with our main-tower in Dharamsala, providing a solid 3-5mbps (bi-directional) performance (UDP stream) depending on weather conditions. With this important installation, we are now well positioned to extend our Palampur network further into the eastern part of the Kangra district and the western part of Mandi district, where we have a large number of organizations who were eagerly waiting for the arrival of AirJaldi. The installation began in the pleasant early morning hours which welcomed us upon arrival to the serene site together with a number of pilgrims – Ashapuri is an important local temple and place of pilgrimage. The early blissful hours were however soon replaced by the intense summer noon heat, leaving only us and a few stray dogs outdoors – the latter wandering around and former hauling, climbing, connecting and testing.
Read more ---->
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Finaly, the new server for AirJaldi is installed and is ready for service.
In fact, if you see this page - it means that it's still working ;-)
Well, this is what it looks like ------------------->>>
The server is hosted in Hurrican Electric farm in Fremont, Califronia.
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The new server will host all sites, content and services related to AirJaldi. In addition, pending bandwidth and time constrains, we welcome all Tibetan non-profits and other non-profits affiliated with us to host their sites with us. The machine is managed by a group of volunteer system administrators from around the world.
Thanks everyone for the hard work in making this operational.
<< Jim - installing the server at HE.net.
Photo: Yahel. |
Very soon after the installation on Intel's roof in Berkeley, we'd setup the other end of the link - on the roof of Sun-Micro-Systems in Menlo Park .
It was a very clear day - we could actually see the Intel building all the way far at the Berkeley side - easy aiming...
Excellent link..
Yahel installing a 2.4 grid on the roof of Sun MicroSystems - in Menlo-Park, CA.
Photo: Jim Forster.
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The year (2007) started with Mikey's visit to California.
The plan (which did happen) was to go over the year's workplan and genrally do lots of talking...
As per the AirJaldi tradition, talks must be accompanied with actions - so Mikey was draged to the roof to get some work done...
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Mikey on the roof of Intel Research - Berkeley - mounting an antenna which is used for TIER's long-distance WiFi experiments.
The far end of the link is in the sount-bay, on the roof of Sun-Microsystems.
In the background: San-Francisco, The bay-bridge and the golden-gate bridge.
(C) Photo: Yahel Ben-David.
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