TechIdiots Forum

In addition to the permanent setup in my truck, I now have the beginnings of a totally battery-operated, portable setup for walking, biking, hiking, driving (in someone else's car), riding the train, etc.
This is the MicroCenter Winbook 700 (got a refurbished one for $43 at MicroCenter in Chicago), a TP-Link dual-band Wi-Fi dongle with external antenna ($24 at Fry's), a little GPS module and TTL serial to USB adapter, and $10 4-port hub. All the necessary power for the GPS and Wi-Fi is supplied by the Winbook. The Winbook runs Win 8.1 which is a bit obtuse but I was able to corral it by removing a bunch of dross and using some custom apps.

My next step is to hack the usb hub, remove two of the four USB sockets, direct-wire the GPS and the wi-fi into the hub, then put the whole thing in a weathertight plastic box with the Wi-Fi antenna outside and the GPS antenna inside, a couple of magnets, and voila! a mag-mount for cartop. Maybe a suction cup or two will allow it to be a window mount (for train, metro, bus or someone else's car). I might get started on it this weekend.

The runs in Chicagoland this past week were all using this setup with only the Wi-Fi antenna sticking out the almost completely rolled-up passenger-side window in the rental car. I got really good yields per mile. Yesterday, I put the Wi-Fi dongle on the roof of my truck and ran side-by-side tests with the mobile setup already in the truck. It was basically neck-and-neck the whole way. Wasn't more than a few percent difference, and that could have been due to antenna position more than anything else.

I also installed SDR# on the Winbook, and with my SDR dongle I can scan radio frequencies, listen to police and fire, FM broadcast, TV, weather, ADS-B (aircraft location), aircraft comms, everything. I'm going to install another few apps on it to complement some of my hobbies. Most everything is running out of a removable 32 GB microSD card.

It also has forward- and rearward facing cameras, and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi built in. I'm trying to figure out what to do with the Bluetooth. The built-in WiFi is nice since I can use the TP-Link Wi-Fi for the Vistumbler and the built-in for regular connectivity.

Cheers - Jon N7UV

Very nice, I still want to put a mount in my car for the 2013 Nexus 7 that I have, It has a built in GPS and gets a respectable amount of APs. I have been wanting to make an Android client for a while that does scanning. I currently use Wardrive 4 Android, but I would like something that auto uploads to WiFiDB.

Off topic, but I spent the morning making an adapter for the Canon A720 cameras we have left over from the big setup we had. They have this plastic ring around the lens that can be removed with the press of a button. So I took two of them. One of them I filled the inside of the ring with hotglue so it would fit snugly on the housing for the eyepiece. But right after I finished making it and test fitting it, the clouds rolled in and are going to be around for the rest of the day and night

This was the start of my wardriving career. A great 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi card.
It was the Orinoco card, which had an external antenna connector on it as well, with an L-Comm 2.4 GHz fiberglass antenna on a mag mount (have them both still), and a Windows ME laptop permanently mounted on a homemade mount in a 2000 Yukon XL, and a Rand-MacNally GPS dongle. It was awesome, especially since there were so few people with Wi-Fi setups, so every week produced new finds. I'd do a monthly map of new APs - here's an example from my website.

http://jonadams.com/pages/wifi/Mappoint ... ug2005.htm

I just berely remember my first wardriving back in the early 2000's using netstumbler.

pferland wrote:Off topic, but I spent the morning making an adapter for the Canon A720 cameras we have left over from the big setup we had. They have this plastic ring around the lens that can be removed with the press of a button. So I took two of them. One of them I filled the inside of the ring with hotglue so it would fit snugly on the housing for the eyepiece. But right after I finished making it and test fitting it, the clouds rolled in and are going to be around for the rest of the day and night

Nice! I keep wanting to do something similar. A loooong time ago, I took a Logitech camera and adapted it (with crazy glue) to an eyepiece assembly for a cheap telescope I had. Gave great views of the Moon. Was ok for Jupiter, could even see the four major moons there.

Nice, the setup I made did not end up working out, the focal points of the camera and adapter will not align But Its been rainy here for about a week now, so I have only had one chance to actually try out my MacGyvered camera attachment.
I am probably just break down and get a dedicated Astronomy camera. I figured a Monochrome would be the best for taking pictures as I can put different filters of my choice. Will also let me know how well I was able to align the mirrors too lol.

which camera are you looking at? There are some awesome ones, but I can't afford those, and of course it would also require me to finally buy a good telescope

arizonajon wrote:In addition to the permanent setup in my truck, I now have the beginnings of a totally battery-operated, portable setup for walking, biking, hiking, driving (in someone else's car), riding the train, etc.

IMG_3946.JPG

This is the MicroCenter Winbook 700 (got a refurbished one for $43 at MicroCenter in Chicago), a TP-Link dual-band Wi-Fi dongle with external antenna ($24 at Fry's), a little GPS module and TTL serial to USB adapter, and $10 4-port hub. All the necessary power for the GPS and Wi-Fi is supplied by the Winbook. The Winbook runs Win 8.1 which is a bit obtuse but I was able to corral it by removing a bunch of dross and using some custom apps.

I did get my new highly portable, wardriving, warcycling, and warwalking setup done and took it with me this past week on my business trip to Chicagoland.

http://www.jonadams.com/wireless/

I have photos and a writeup on what i did on my blog site (above). It is really rocking, and very easy to deploy.

Cheers - Jon N7UV

Very nice, this probably would be perfect to throw in my backpack when I am ridding around on my street-bike. Once I get it cleaned out since about a dozen mice decided to make the ram intake and the air-box their home for the winter (and that was with mothball chemicals and poison) :/ At least they didn't get past the air-filter and I did not turn it on before I found the nest from the smell.


Also, the electronics sandwich, what order did you put the boards in. I was thinking its probably not that much interference, but if the GPS is on top of the stack I wonder if it would get better reception than somewhere else in the stack. Just a thought.

-Phil

I added some info and a diagram showing the stackup.

http://www.jonadams.com/wireless/

ariezonajon wrote: ↑Sun Jun 05, 2016 2:58 pm I added some info and a diagram showing the stackup.

Awesome setup. I used to have something similar.

arizonajon wrote: ↑Sun Jun 05, 2016 2:58 pm I added some info and a diagram showing the stackup.

Hi Awesome setup.
I used to have something similar.

It's amazing!