We had a fun lab meeting last night. Lots of people came, and I learned a lot.

We took apart one of the three 2.4/5.8 ghz 90 degree sector antennas that Streakwave donated. Pictures were taken, but havn't been put online anywhere yet. These antennas have two N connectors and would be perfect to hook up to a 802.11a radio to provide backhaul over 5.8 ghz, and service over 2.4.

At the last regular meeting the comment was made that due to electricity use we'd be better off using new low electricity using boxes in place of older high consumptive machines (like recycled PC's).

Bruce showed me how to use my ohm meter to measure amperage used by a computer, and then figure out the power used in watts.

The old compaq pizza box that Bruce has set up as an http proxy in the lab (set your browser proxy to 10.42.3.9 to use this proxy!) takes about .20 amps. My p75 Dell that is my router to Holly Ridge uses .29, and my Via with a 20 and 120 gb drive takes .45 or so.

This translates to something like 23-54 watts, or around 16-40 kWh per month. At 12 cents per kWh, that is $2.76-6.48/month.

Does anyone have different numbers?

Mark suggested being more diligent at having agendas and tracking action items. He was unanimously, by all present, appointed 'person in charge of having agendas and tracking action items'

Mark sent pictures, and I also took a few.

Mark's photos

My Photos

Also, I totally forget to mention the great fun that was had as we hacked about with Shaun's new pan and tilt web cam. Bruce and Shaun set it up so that we could watch ourselves while we were meeting. More entertainingly, anyone on the web could have watched us that evening.

I'm sure I'm forgetting other fun stuff.

So...when do we meet again?