Update: rural internet access

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My internet antenna. It’s a 12-inch omnidirectional antenna. The fencing is a quick-and-dirty ground plane.

Last year I started using Alltel’s EVDO wireless system for internet access. I had a rough start with slow speeds, but after some nerdly noodling the system settled down and was pretty reliable, with typical download speeds of 500 kbps and typical upload speeds of about 90 kbps. This is not as fast as DSL, but here in rural America where we don’t have DSL, that was a pretty good speed.

Then, about a week ago, my speeds suddenly dropped from EVDO speeds to what is called “1x” speed — 130 kbps down and 40 or so kbps up. Very bad. When I called Alltel tech support, the tech told me that I had almost certainly been roaming to a Sprint tower for all those months, and that, because of the Verizon merger with Alltel, the roaming agreement with Sprint had ended. Now, he said, I would have to connect with an Alltel tower or a Verizon tower. All Alltel towers support 1x, but not all of them support EVDO.

On Sunday, tired of working on the new house, I decided to do some nerd work. I put a directional EVDO antenna on a portable mast and turned it in all directions, searching for a (possibly distant) tower that would give me EVDO speeds. I could get a 1x signal by pointing in almost any direction. In some directions I could detect a faint (-117 dBm) EVDO signal, but the signal was too faint to connect to. Disappointed, I reconnected the omnidirectional antenna that I’ve been using for months. I found that I could get a slightly stronger 1x signal if I improved the antenna’s ground plane by putting some metal fencing under the antenna. Slight improvements in antenna efficiency never do any harm.

To my surprise, about an hour later, I found that I was getting EVDO speeds again, better than the speeds I had all winter. I have no idea what changed.

Without accurate and up to date information on exactly where different carriers’ towers are located, and what data services are supported on those towers, making EVDO work out in the sticks is guesswork and voodoo. Plus I’ve never had an opportunity to talk with anyone who truly understands how cellular technology works. The employees of cell phone companies know nothing beyond “what PRL are you using.” At this point I have no idea whether I’m connected to an Alltel tower or a Verizon tower, or where that tower is. One of my nerdly rules is, if it’s working good, leave it alone. The high speed connection has been up for 14 hours. I hope I can hold on to it.

People think I’m weird because my cell phone (a Motorola M800 bag phone) weighs 10 pounds, and my data card (a Kyocera KPC680) has an outdoor antenna. But, here in the sticks, I would never consider buying a cell phone or a data device that can’t be connected to a proper outdoor antenna. The built-in antennas are pathetic and work well only when they’re close to a cellular tower.

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.82 Mb/s = 820 kbps. That would be a decent speed on DSL, and it’s a great speed for rural EVDO.

Kindle 2.0 on the way?

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An older Kindle 1.0 (Amazon.com)

Rumors of an updated model of the Kindle, which everyone has been calling Kindle 2.0, have been kicking around for months. Amazon ran out of Kindles before the holidays.

Now a blogger at the Los Angeles Times is reporting that Amazon has scheduled a press event in New York for Feb. 9 that everyone assumes will be the rollout for Kindle 2.0. I’m hoping that Amazon also will reduce the price.

The neat thing about the Kindle is that it automatically downloads new content using the EVDO cellular network, and Amazon pays the bill for the EVDO. The Kindle comes with a basic Web browser, so that means it can be used to browse the Internet, or check your email, while out and about, with Amazon paying the network costs. Since I’m in the market for a way to check email while out and about, that makes the Kindle very tempting. Back in San Francisco I had a Blackberry, and yes, I miss it. I can’t justify the expense of a Blackberry here in the woods. My EVDO and cell phone bills are already high enough. But I’m hoping the Kindle would serve as a poor person’s Blackberry. You’d have to buy the Kindle, of course, but there’d be no monthly bill for Internet service.

Improvements in the 'Where's David' GPS system

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The track I followed today to Walnut Cove, then to Sauratown Mountain (getting lost on the way), then back home past Hanging Rock State Park and through Danbury.

I’ve made some improvements in my “Where’s David” GPS system that make it practical for me to use the system any time the Jeep is on the road.

The old system used a Garmin eTrex Legend handheld GPS device. When I wanted to use it, I had to make sure the Garmin device’s batteries were charged, put it in the back window of the Jeep, and plug it into the VHF transceiver. I wanted a system permanently hooked to the Jeep and drawing the Jeep’s power, the same way the VHF transceiver is hooked up.

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The GPS device I previously used, now retired — a Garmin eTrex Legend

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The new GPS device — a Trimble Placer 450

The new GPS device, a Trimble Placer 450, is made for permanent installation in vehicles. The devices are made for the commercial fleet-tracking market. I connected it to the Jeep’s wiring, and it’s safely mounted in the trunk of the Jeep along with my VHF transceiver. The Placer unit also has an exterior antenna, so it gets stronger signals from the GPS satellites

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The Placer GPS unit’s satellite antenna, outside on the back of the Jeep

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The control panel for the VHF transceiver is mounted above the windshield

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The VHF transceiver’s antenna is on a short mast on the back of the Jeep

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Sauratown Mountain

How it works: The Placer GPS unit monitors the Jeep’s position, speed, heading, and altitude. The Placer GPS unit constantly sends this data to the VHF transceiver, a Kenwood TM-D700, through a wired serial connection. Every so many minutes, the TM-D700 transmits an AX.25 APRS packet on a ham frequency reserved for this purpose — 144.390 Mhz. These packets are almost always heard by a ham “digipeater” or internet gateway station which puts the location information into an Internet database operated by hams. Once this is in the database, anyone can look at, and map, the data. Amateur radio transmissions, by law, are open to all who want to listen. One must have an amateur radio license to operate the VHF transceiver and make the transmissions, though. That is, a license is required to transmit, but anyone can listen. The Kenwood TM-D700 is well suited to this GPS location mechanism, because it has built-in digital capabilities, with a device called a “terminal node controller.”

About Sauratown Mountain: Stokes County has its own little mountain range, the Sauratown Mountains. Two of these mountains, Hanging Rock and Pilot Mountain, are state parks. However, one of the mountains, Sauratown Mountain, has been used for decades as a site for radio and television antenna towers. On a clear day, one can see 60 miles or more. Since VHF radio frequencies follow a line of sight, from the top of Sauratown Mountain one can communicate nicely on VHF frequencies. While I was on Sauratown Mountain this morning testing the new system, I spoke with KG4IXS, who is 16 miles northeast of Danville, Virginia, almost 70 miles away. The Kenwood transceiver can, of course, handle both digital and voice communication.

How to find David: There are a couple of links to the right here on the blog under “Where’s David?”

Technology traps

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James Burke with a relay like the one that caused the Northeast Blackout of 1965

We all live in a technology trap.

One of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen, back in the 1980s, was James Burke‘s Connections series. In one part of this series, he takes as his case study the Northeast Blackout of 1965 to show how we all live in a technology trap and how we’re all in denial about it. I’ve often thought about, and made reference to, this series over the years. I recently discovered that you can watch it on YouTube.

As you watch this documentary, keep in mind that the power grid today remains old and balkanized. And the power grid is just one of the technology traps that we depend on every day.

Everyone is nervous these days about the state of the economy. Obviously there’s not much we can do. But it’s good for one’s mental health to do something. One thing we can do is take a little time to look around us at our technology traps and think about where we can easily and cheaply provide ourselves some backup.

Update on rural Internet access

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Omnidirectional vertical EVDO/cellular antenna

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DSL speeds!

For reasons I don’t really understand, I’m getting better EVDO performance with an omnidirectional antenna than with a directional Yagi antenna pointed at the nearest Alltel tower. Small improvements in antenna placement also have made a substantial improvement. The antenna wants to be high and in the clear (as opposed to perched on the roof of the trailer). The antenna also likes a metal base with ground-plane wires roughly the same length as the antenna. You can see the ground-plane wires dangling from the base of the antenna.

I now feel like I’m getting my money’s worth out of Alltel. I’m also getting a decent Internet experience, at last.

Uh-oh. New warnings on cell phone radiation…

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Wikipedia

We know that the recent rumors about popping corn with cell phones were a hoax. But today there are fresh stories in the media about health risks from cell phone radiation (1, 2). It would be useless for me to rant about how most people talk too much on their cell phones. But as a Steampunk, I am going to rant about cell phone design.

It amazes me how quickly our telephone culture moved from the beautiful, classic design of an old Bell System telephone handset — which actually fit the human hand, mouth, and ear — to the absurd design of today’s cell phones. I guess this is because people want something small that they can carry in their pocket and whip out in an instant for a good hour of useless conversation anytime, anywhere. But these phones don’t fit the hand, or the mouth, or the ear. Even worse, the antenna is right against the skull. So it is certainly true that even though cell phones deliver a small amount of radio frequency energy, this energy is concentrated in one of the worst possible places — right up against the ear and skull. The only place that could be worse would be the eye.

There are alternatives, but there’s not much market for them except from communication nerds like me who demand good design. Also I don’t spend half my day talking on the thing. I’ve posted previously about this phone from the perspective of a ham radio operator who demands a good transmitter, a good receiver, and a good antenna — even on his cell phone.

Here are two photos of my Motorola M900 digital bag phone. Note that the antenna is completely separate from the rest of the phone. There’s also a warning sticker near the antenna telling the user to keep at least 10 inches from the antenna. This cell phone has a separate handset which contains only the earpiece and mouthpiece. The handset fits the hand, the ear, and the mouth pretty well:

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Also note that I can easily attach an external antenna to this phone, giving a much better signal in rural areas like the area I live in. I can also use the external antenna when the phone is in the car. Here’s the external antenna perched on top of my travel trailer:

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I’m guessing, though, that Americans will rethink their insane cell phone designs around the same time they rethink their insane freeways.

Oh, are you a steampunk too?

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http://steampunkworkshop.com/keyboard.shtml

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www.castlemagic.com

Finally, at last, I have an identity. I know what I am. I am a steampunk. I discovered this through one of the New York Times’ blogs.

How do you know if you’re a steampunk? If you do your laundry (as I have been doing) with buckets and a washboard and hang it up to dry, but you also have an iMac and are tempted to get an iPhone. If you want a house (as I do) with a gothic design, but you also want it to be as green as possible. If you want a real keyboard for your iMac, something like you might have found on an IBM terminal in 1972. If you understand that analog technology can never be made obsolete by digital technology, no matter how many smarty-pants young techies think otherwise (leave a comment and bring it on, if you dare, smarty-pants young techies).

As documentation of my steampunk credentials, below is a photo of today’s laundry and my iMac.

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Actually I’m going to go ahead and respond to the smarty-pants young techies who think that analog technology has been made obsolete by digital technology. Your Wifi router, and your cell phone, use digital forms of signal modulation, but the underlying transmitters and receivers are analog, since radio waves are, and will forever be, analog. Your audio system may use digital sampling and recording methods. But your amplifier is, and will remain, an analog device, because sound waves are, and will forever be, analog. Your eardrum is an analog device. Physics and engineering will forever need differential equations to calculate, say, orbits and trajectories. All those equations are analog. The universe is analog. Any digital system that wants to interface with nature must do so in an analog way.

Rain today = tomatoes tomorrow

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The reddest part of this squall missed me, but it left an eighth of an inch of rain yesterday.

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Today we have real rainy-day rain, and it may go on for hours.

What I last lived in thunderstorm country (17 years ago), Internet radar didn’t exist. Now you can easily see when rain is approaching, and how much.

After they’ve had time to slurp up some of this rain, I’ll have some photos to show what the rain did for my baby tomatoes, peppers, peas, and beans.

Finding country roads, with technology

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The backroad to Germanton

I’ve always loved the backroads, and I thought I knew the backroads around here. But nothing knows the backroads like a GPS device.

I’ve had a hiker’s GPS unit for years, but it’s not smart enough to plot over-the-road routes and tell you where to turn. I’ve played with those things occasionally in rental cars, but they’re too complicated to learn how to use in a rent car. But last week I broke down and got me** a remaindered Garmin iQue M5 on eBay.

It got me*** to Madison easily. I had not previously been to Madison from here because I didn’t know how to get there. I also let the GPS device plot a new route to Mama’s house in Yadkin County. It found a backroads way that I would never have thought to try, and it cut two to four miles off the distance. If you accidentally or intentionally stray off the route, the device will warn you, recalculate a new route, and talk you back toward your destination. Often I’ve avoided trying backroads because I had no map, had no idea where the roads went, and I didn’t want to risk getting too lost. But an in-car GPS device frees you up to explore with confidence.

Within the next few weeks, I’m planning a road trip into the mountains along the Tennessee/Virginia line. I’m going to explore me** some backroads.

** Californians: Google “reflexive dative,” or see this or this. Don’t y’all miss my little seminars on Appalachian English?

*** This is not a reflexive dative but is rather a simple indirect object. 🙂