For anyone interested, there are two nodes up and operating in Baldwin County. Phil, WB4EPG, has a NSM2 up about 25 feet in the Summerdale RV park where he's staying until December. The antenna is generally aimed to the north.
I have N4RT-3 up at 84 feet on State Hwy 225 about halfway between Spanish Fort and Bay Minette. It is running a Rocket with an AirMax 13 dbi omni antenna.
We hope to have another node up at K4JIE in Bay Minette this week. He will be running a NSM2 up about 40 feet and pointed generally SW for now.
73,
Ron N4RT
I have N4RT-3 up at 84 feet on State Hwy 225 about halfway between Spanish Fort and Bay Minette. It is running a Rocket with an AirMax 13 dbi omni antenna.
We hope to have another node up at K4JIE in Bay Minette this week. He will be running a NSM2 up about 40 feet and pointed generally SW for now.
73,
Ron N4RT
need to learn more , , where isd good place to get equipment and what do i need , thanks larry hawkins km4zfk
Sorry it took me this long to respond... haven't checked the forum for a little while. I plan to do another presentation on AREDN for the South Baldwin Amateur Radio Club on their meeting night Thursday, March 16th, at 7 pm at the EOC in Robertsdale. That would be a good place to come and get acquainted with the topic of AREDN and get a look at some of the status screens that are displayed by an operational mesh network node.
At some point, there will be a node installed on the E911 tower in Seminole, so you should be able to link up with the network in Baldwin County when that happens. We're not sure when it will happen, as the node will be installed when E911 has to do maintenance on that tower... but it will happen.
Also, there is a tailgate/swapmeet in Satsuma this coming Saturday, March 11th at Fred K. Wright Park. That's on US43 a few miles south of Exit 19 on I-65. We will have a couple of demo nodes set up at the tailgate there and also there will be demos set up at the Moble ARC hamfest on April 8th at the Abba Shrine Center on Hitt Road in Mobile and another demo on April 29th in Bay Minette at a tailgate there. That tailgate will be at the Pfeffer Flooring Warehouse parking lot on Hwy 287 (Bay Minette bypass) just north of the city limits.
Hope to see you at one of these functions and I can better answer your questions. There is no "one size fits all" solution. There are lots of options depending on how high you can get the antenna and what you want to do with it. Since there are currently no operational nodes near you, I'd suggest starting with something simple like a portable node that you can take on the road and set up when you want to connect to the network.
73,
Ron N4RT
Bromley, AL