random ramblings while waiting . . .

A place to talk about wardriving
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mysticvirgo67
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random ramblings while waiting . . .

Post by mysticvirgo67 »

... for Vistumbler to import VS1 files. this one was pretty big and though I know that posting in forums (or doing much of anything else for that matter) saps vital processing cycles from Vistumbler whilest it is doing its thing, I couldn't pass up the urge to ramble.

---Warscout antenna mounting ---

I know that perhaps my going on about Warscout's antenna mount may be getting long in the tooth, but I am still finding all sorts of subtlties on just how incredibly useful PVC pipe can be! Low clearance structures, for example, the bane of many a radiohead's existance. Not just Wifi, but CB and Moble Ham rigs as well. Take my buddy, Pingpanther, as an example. He forgot that he had his 6ft tall Hi-Gain 16dbi omni still deployed atop his fullsized van "Wardriver" when he felt the McUrge for a double with cheese. He failed clearance at the drivethru by 3 feet, crackedthe shroud of the omni and stripped it clean off the top of his van!

One man's disaster is another one's fortune for he kicked me down the cracked whip that I fixed handily with a section of HDPE tubing slit down one side (a 'sleeve') slipped over the crack and weatherproofed with 3M allweather electrical tape.

BTW, kids.. there are many things in life you can get away with by using 'bargain' grade stuff.. but NEVER skip on quality of electrical OR duct tape! 3M is the ONLY way to go!

So with my rig, so long as I don't forget, if I am nervous about clearances, all I need to do is pull over , get out, slide the side door open , reach up and do a little twist-n- tug. Off comes my mast to be laid in the van. no worries.

TIP - There is no need to glue your PCV roof rack mount together. The normal press fit of PCV fittings are plenty strong where you don't have much of a wind load. I knew that the Tee that I use to mount the mast to the rest of the frame had a good chance of rotating backwards at highway speeds COULD rotate out of position, I drilled a pilot hole through one leg of the fitting and the forward section of the fram and secured it with a single 1 inch decking screw. QED

Don't screw the mast into the tee, there is enough friction between the mast and the fitting to keep the antenna pointed the direction you want but just loose enough to take the mast off without tools.


---Sidescanning ---

This is the term usually used in the military and other sensor dependant professions for sensors that 'scan' perpendicularly to the direction of travel. Usually when talking about Radar and Sonar applications. So why couldn't I use the same principle when scanning AP's? Maybe I could find some really interesting data patterns this way? So my thinking goes along these lines. I have this really wonderful antenna with a really clean and directional radiation pattern ( Think in 3-d of a long, narrow cigar shape) that I have been using in a forward scanning mode. All it can do likethis is pick up a narrow corridore of signal as the 'Scout is travelling down the road.
Something like only 200 - 300 meters wide by about 1200-2400 feet long. But if I face it 90 degrees to direction of travel, I should be able to scan a wide 'swath' of area as deep as the beam's reach, say again around 1200 feet.

So today I tried it. I have a nice route that the family and I normally take into town and sidescanned a 2 mile section of it ( will be posted as KML in shared scans thread) . Normally this section of town only kicks about 200 or so AP's at all levels of security. In the sidescan configuration, the same section of road provided over 700 ap's in open/ none and open/WEP alone! I suppose one could locate the precise location of an AP by following a circular route (clockwise or counter depending if antenna is pointing driverside or passenger) and then triangulating. Note to Andrew- is there any way to show GPS signal strength as a 'bullseye' instead of a 'line graph' ? with the radius of each ring equal to signal strength percentage? Please reply in the 'features' thread.

well is tine for bed and to let stumbler run for the night.

Thanks for letting me ramble
---Mystic
"People don't need restore. They just need recovery...and the occasional hard boot"
"The maximum acceleration of a PC is limited only by the amount of explosives used"
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ACalcutt
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Re: random ramblings while waiting . . .

Post by ACalcutt »

Ramble all you want....its the only communication taking place in these forums...lol

All this PVC talk reminded me of this -> http://hackaday.com/2009/07/11/cheap-cu ... ptop-tray/

As for the circular graph, that would be really hard i think. In the current graphs I am drawing them line by line
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ACalcutt
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Re: random ramblings while waiting . . .

Post by ACalcutt »

And another tip.

Loading from a MDB file is faster. If you do (File -> Exit(Save DB)) to exit it will ask you if you want to recover the MDB the next time you load vistumbler. Since the MDB already has all the data in it, all vistumbler needs to do is pull all the data into the list and treeview


A trick I have been using if I just want to export to kml of a big file(like the 98mb one I have)
Open Vistumbler
Start a new session
Change the ssid filter to something that shouldn't exist,
Close this vistumbler window (normal exit...no need to save a empty db)
Then reload Vistumbler, this time recovering the DB you want to open

Because Vistumbler does not need to load any APs into the list and treeview it only takes like 30 seconds before you can start using vistumber. You won't see the access points in the list, but you can export them


I plan to make a way to save/open MDB files directly eventually, but right now this is the quickest way to load a file
mysticvirgo67
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Re: random ramblings while waiting . . .

Post by mysticvirgo67 »

well, thought I would ask about it anyway. some coding languages make it easy, some make it hard.

I love PVC.. is like Tinkertoys for big boys! LOL. One of my little'dreams' if I ever came across a nice chunk of disposable income is to buy bulk fittings ( tees, 90-ells, 45-ells, ect) and many pieces each of 1,2,3,4,&5 ft precut sections for my kids to play with in back yard. Could ya picture the monkybars they could build out of that!? LOL
"People don't need restore. They just need recovery...and the occasional hard boot"
"The maximum acceleration of a PC is limited only by the amount of explosives used"
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