first post

I've sometimes thought it would be cool to have one of those fancy blog things and document some "awesome" project or another I'm messing with. I usually decide that my project is not really that interesting to anyone(or even myself) or I only take time to snap a few pictures and never do anything with them. If anything I only jam them up on some web server email a few direct links to friends.

Well, apparently I'm pretty excited about this latest project since I've actually created a blog.... it only took until 2012 but here it is.

Whether this project gets completed or not, I might find the blog useful for documenting other projects in the future.

Ok, on to the current project and impetus for creating this blog:

Portable 12V powered 11 (or 14) channel kismet_server running from a single antenna

(no fancy name yet.... maybe NFNY14.

 I actually sort of like "ks14" )

Some goals:

• Prove out the single antenna to multi-radio via LNA idea
• Determine horsepower needed for 14 concurrent channel kismet_server
• Document it along the way

Some hardware particulars(red stuff in shipping, green is in my possession now):

• 14 x Ralink RT2870 USB sticks with RP-SMA connector 
• 14 x SMA to RP-SMA adapters
• 4 x 7-port USB Hubs with ext power jacks 
• 1 x Mini-Circuits 16 Port RF Power Splitter 
• 1 x 2Ghz LNA 
• 1 x PCTMDL 3g/GPS/Wifi Mobile Antenna 
• 1 x MSI Wind Nettop 105: 12V Input, Atom 330, 2G, 4G CF, 500G SATA

Some software/config particulars:

• Openwrt trunk
• Kismet-2011-03-R2 
• gpsd talking to an Axiom Sandpiper OEM GPS board
• RX ONLY, (no VAPs, interfaces in monitor mode only)

Most of the materials on hand now

That's the basic gist here. Further posts will address the splitter losses, how well the LNA overcomes them, USB power consumption, mounting, and whatever else crops up on the way to success.