How many miles do you drive a month war driving?

[i_do_dew]

How many miles do you think you cover a month. Obviously where you cover them depends on your hit rate, but the driven miles is probably important too.

Since I live close to work (less than .5 miles) I've started visiting yard/Garage sales on weekends to give me a resonable justification for trolling though residental neighborhoods. It also gives me alot of AP's that no one else has covered. The real trick is not buying anything at the yard sales.

I usually pull in a couple thousand AP'sthought the weekend especially if Im in a richer neighborhood. Total driving of about 50 miles.

Also I run stumber with Midi=on C=9 P=44 T=20

Sometimes people hear it and are like what is that? (sounds like a gothic pipe organ) I say ask if they have heard of Music of the Spheres and most have but dont know what it is so they wont admit that. So anyway this is like music of the spheres but it is hooked to the GPS. Which is technically true.

[Petzl]

45.000 km/Year wardiving all the time

[hratch]

45.000 km/Year wardiving all the time

45000 km? a month maybe.... just kidding.

actually it's pretty silly the amount of miles i have moved my wardriving gear through. several times around the world each year for the last 4 years.

[mokum]

I take my kit out with the intention to wardrive, so my miles [km's rather] are limited, to say, 50. Then again: I drive urban areas only: it's not the distance, it's the target selection that matters [for teh numbers at least].

As soon as the headless WRT kits are all production ready, I am sure I'll do more.

Cheers,
mokum

[mark571]

45.000 km/Year wardiving all the time

45000 km? a month maybe.... just kidding.

actually it's pretty silly the amount of miles i have moved my wardriving gear through. several times around the world each year for the last 4 years.

And you are not kidding either.

I drive ~45 miles round trip to work and back taking different routes. If I am in my vehicle I`m stumbling plus various road trips. I probably average 2,000+ a month.

[argh]

my daily commute is about 15 minutes on rural interstate. to get to work, i only cross a corner of the town, and no residential. although there are always more AP's, this is thinly populated enough that i only re-stumble it about once a month.

full-fledged driving, i don't do that many miles, i concentrate on residential areas. nearby towns are 15-20 miles away. i only go out about once a month strictly for the purpose of wardriving. gas is so high now, it's harder for me to recreationally drive around for a few hours. anytime i am going on a trip to anywhere new, i make every effort to bring the gear.

i don't pursue it that hard, i just keep doing it.

[hratch]

I have a lot of miles, but I don't necessarily have quality miles. I am limited mostly to interstate travel and interstate speeds.

One of the hardest things is getting a decent GPS signal on the busses in a way that doesn't interfere with the 10 other people on the bus and without modding the busses.

We don't keep the same bus all year. We have probably travelled in a dozen or more busses in the last year alone so any fancy modding is out of the question. Aftermarket tint on the windows really kills the RF. Once again, I am not able to mount the antennas on the outside of the bus.

But then again, I am not the one behind the wheel and I am not paying for the fuel. I guess it has it's perks.

[mark571]

I have a lot of miles, but I don't necessarily have quality miles. I am limited mostly to interstate travel and interstate speeds.

One of the hardest things is getting a decent GPS signal on the buses in a way that doesn't interfere with the 10 other people on the bus and without modding the busses.

We don't keep the same bus all year. We have probably travelled in a dozen or more busses in the last year alone so any fancy modding is out of the question. Aftermarket tint on the windows really kills the RF. Once again, I am not able to mount the antennas on the outside of the bus.

But then again, I am not the one behind the wheel and I am not paying for the fuel. I guess it has it's perks.

I suspected they were not dedicated buses. That does make it harder.

Those miles may not be quality, but they're keeping you ahead of me nicely. Keeps it interesting though.

Since I switched to the BU-353 SiRF III GPS puck, I've had sooo much better luck with GPS. Other than "deep" 100+ yard long tunnels, darn little bothers it and of course that's with using the old version of GPSD. No lock problems in downtown Chicago, Dallas, or Boston much less other urban canyons. I've got three of them now and never touch the others.

[argh]

GPS matters aside, if the majority of your miles are 50mph or above, a second card and antenna can _really_ make a difference. the time it takes to scan the 11 (USA) channels can easily let you miss the few packets as you skim the perimeter of an AP at speed. i'm sure we've all re-stumbled a regular commute, and seen fringe ones not appear every time. it's an easy option in kismet.conf to allow a second card (logs to the same file) and effectively letting you scan twice as fast (they don't overlap much, each card stays on it's own half more or less).

if you use USB for second nic, this wouldn't be that hard to do. a dual PCMCIA slot can be a challenge to get two cards with external antennas to fit. Senao/SMC/others have some slim cards with removable internal antenna that fit in two slots nicely. they're also 200mw, but that's not an issue for Kismet.

of course that gets to be a bigger ball o' wires to hassle with in a vehicle if you don't have it semi-permanently installed. i for one, welcome our new headless WRT54G/kismet overlords....

[mark571]

GPS matters aside, if the majority of your miles are 50mph or above, a second card and antenna can _really_ make a difference. the time it takes to scan the 11 (USA) channels can easily let you miss the few packets as you skim the perimeter of an AP at speed. i'm sure we've all re-stumbled a regular commute, and seen fringe ones not appear every time. it's an easy option in kismet.conf to allow a second card (logs to the same file) and effectively letting you scan twice as fast (they don't overlap much, each card stays on it's own half more or less).

if you use USB for second nic, this wouldn't be that hard to do. a dual PCMCIA slot can be a challenge to get two cards with external antennas to fit. Senao/SMC/others have some slim cards with removable internal antenna that fit in two slots nicely. they're also 200mw, but that's not an issue for Kismet.

of course that gets to be a bigger ball o' wires to hassle with in a vehicle if you don't have it semi-permanently installed. i for one, welcome our new headless WRT54G/kismet overlords....

Hratch uses two amps, and two flat panels but I'm not sure if he uses two cards.

I've been experimenting with three Senao 2511CD plus ext2 cards using two antennas each with an amp mixed in for fun on two and three laptops off and on with different combinations all running Kismet and a Linksys drone (thank you Renderman). My Compaq E500 has two slots but the other only have one each. Two or more cards is definitely superior to one even at 20 - 30 mph if there's any density at all. I'm using a RamPod III mount up front in my 4Runner to keep the main box steady.

[argh]

wow, sounds like you have a big ball o' wires indeed! by amps i assume you mean RF amplifier? i've been a radio hobbyist all my life, a ham in the 80's, blahblah and wayback, many external amps also had a receive preamp. i am a passive receiver only while 'driving, so transmit power would do me no good at all. a preamp would indeed help a lot. i forget all the details, but the conventions used to be for UHF and above, a GaSFET preamp could attain many db of gain, with a nearly silent noise floor. if you were hardcore this took place in in IF stages of a rig (not just inline with the coax), and was most useful with weak signal work. while i once could output 1kw with ceramic tubes on 20 meters into an antenna with 3db gain, what impressed me most were the moonbouncers, and ping jockeys (meteor scatter). these guys would stack 10-20 little yagis on 23 cm as well as 432mhz, and spend an amazing amount of time and money, to hear and exchange a few seconds of conversation that was bouncing off the Perseids shower trails, or the moon. speech was a poor mode of communication, the best used CW/code to communicate.

with a moderate gain antenna, an amp would increase netstumbler's sphere of influence quite a bit (since it probes). i have never used netstumbler, but the golden rule of ham/RF is "you can't work what you can't hear". netstumbler with legal limit+ of RF emission will indeed trigger many more responses from APs. i would think that the utmost care in connections/coax and a good omni antenna pattern would help to hear the responses a lot. it only takes one doorslam on coax to spoil the party, for weak signal receiving.

in your case, mark571 with the multiple antenna opportunity that you have (wow!), you could mix/match omni/directional quite a bit. what do you find is a good combination at speed? directionals out the side/omni for front/back? or vice versa?

i used to kill too many birds as a ham, now my wife loves birds, so i just listen while wardriving.

[mark571]

wow, sounds like you have a big ball o' wires indeed! by amps i assume you mean RF amplifier? i've been a radio hobbyist all my life, a ham in the 80's, blahblah and wayback, many external amps also had a receive preamp. i am a passive receiver only while 'driving, so transmit power would do me no good at all. a preamp would indeed help a lot. i forget all the details, but the conventions used to be for UHF and above, a GaSFET preamp could attain many db of gain, with a nearly silent noise floor. if you were hardcore this took place in in IF stages of a rig (not just inline with the coax), and was most useful with weak signal work. while i once could output 1kw with ceramic tubes on 20 meters into an antenna with 3db gain, what impressed me most were the moonbouncers, and ping jockeys (meteor scatter). these guys would stack 10-20 little yagis on 23 cm as well as 432mhz, and spend an amazing amount of time and money, to hear and exchange a few seconds of conversation that was bouncing off the Perseids shower trails, or the moon. speech was a poor mode of communication, the best used CW/code to communicate.

with a moderate gain antenna, an amp would increase netstumbler's sphere of influence quite a bit (since it probes). i have never used netstumbler, but the golden rule of ham/RF is "you can't work what you can't hear". netstumbler with legal limit+ of RF emission will indeed trigger many more responses from APs. i would think that the utmost care in connections/coax and a good omni antenna pattern would help to hear the responses a lot. it only takes one doorslam on coax to spoil the party, for weak signal receiving.

in your case, mark571 with the multiple antenna opportunity that you have (wow!), you could mix/match omni/directional quite a bit. what do you find is a good combination at speed? directionals out the side/omni for front/back? or vice versa?

i used to kill too many birds as a ham, now my wife loves birds, so i just listen while wardriving.

I'm receive only. I don't want any fried brains, balls (eye or otherwise), or what ever gets in the way. I use http://www.fab-corp.com/product.php?pro ... 269&page=1 this 1 watt pre amp with Kismet. I typically run with a pair of 5 dBi gain Mobile Mark mag mounts and a pair of home made cantennas made from four 3.25" Bush's baked bean cans (Country style of course) 2 cans each. The omni's are mounted front to back with the cantennas aimed out the sides with a slight 2 - 3 degree forward angle.

I knew hams bounced off a lot of things but meteors is a new on for me. I talked skip in the 70's and did SSB and a lot of SWL but never got my ham license. My activity followed the sunspot cycle a lot. I actually do have a class D license from back then. LOL.

[argh]

ROFL, mark571! i am glad that others have realized that the fabled Pringles-tenna is completely the wrong size for the wavelength!

i used to chase the 7 year sunspot cycles on (near) ten.five meters (cough), and before that listened to WWV as a small child. (AT THE TONE, etc). i was a SWL, my parents let me run longwires. later SSB was cool stuff. i got my ham license in 1980, i was a fanatic on crossband satellite stuff. 10-20 minutes horizon to horizon. we had to chase azimuth/elevation. (and we loved it!). former KA0JQE got online in 1981.

a cheapo launch from french guiana put the proposed high apogee bird in the briny deep, i got discouraged on that then i discovered the intar-web thing before WWW.

i used to chew the rag with 160 meter guys (right below AM broadcast), they completely would not understand a 20 db gain antenna that you could hold with one hand.

now, i go to work and tell the kids that the internet is not broken.

[mark571]

LOL, I'm a big proponent of doing the math. That is "me" doing it rather than begging someone else to. Pringles dimension just wasn't right. Besides the light and "airy" aroma of the consumed baked beans give you at least one more db of gain and adds to stumbling propulsion. I built a lot of long wire antennas to talk on the flat side which was much cleaner that vertical in the 70's and the sweet sound of my Astatic Golden Eagle D104 Mic made it even better.

Ahh, pre WWW. So many think the Web "is" the Internet. LOL. Dial-up BBS's on 1200 baud was smok'in. I paid $500+ for a group buy on a USR Dual Standard HST v32bis 14,400 modem. There was nothing faster and that was a great price at the time. Then there was GENIE and Compuserve, then the outrage when AOL showed up and dumbed everything down. That was the first domino that fell in the dumbing down of mankind. Then WWW showed up.

[i_do_dew]

Wow this is an edju-ma-kation. (joke)

wow, sounds like you have a big ball o' wires indeed! by amps i assume you mean RF amplifier? i've been a radio hobbyist all my life, a ham in the 80's, blahblah and wayback, many external amps also had a receive preamp. i am a passive receiver only while 'driving, so transmit power would do me no good at all. a preamp would indeed help a lot. i forget all the details, but the conventions used to be for UHF and above, a GaSFET preamp could attain many db of gain, with a nearly silent noise floor. if you were hardcore this took place in in IF stages of a rig (not just inline with the coax), and was most useful with weak signal work. while i once could output 1kw with ceramic tubes on 20 meters into an antenna with 3db gain, what impressed me most were the moonbouncers, and ping jockeys (meteor scatter). these guys would stack 10-20 little yagis on 23 cm as well as 432mhz, and spend an amazing amount of time and money, to hear and exchange a few seconds of conversation that was bouncing off the Perseids shower trails, or the moon. speech was a poor mode of communication, the best used CW/code to communicate.

with a moderate gain antenna, an amp would increase netstumbler's sphere of influence quite a bit (since it probes). i have never used netstumbler, but the golden rule of ham/RF is "you can't work what you can't hear". netstumbler with legal limit+ of RF emission will indeed trigger many more responses from APs. i would think that the utmost care in connections/coax and a good omni antenna pattern would help to hear the responses a lot. it only takes one doorslam on coax to spoil the party, for weak signal receiving.

in your case, mark571 with the multiple antenna opportunity that you have (wow!), you could mix/match omni/directional quite a bit. what do you find is a good combination at speed? directionals out the side/omni for front/back? or vice versa?

i used to kill too many birds as a ham, now my wife loves birds, so i just listen while wardriving.

I'm receive only. I don't want any fried brains, balls (eye or otherwise), or what ever gets in the way. I use http://www.fab-corp.com/product.php?pro ... 269&page=1 this 1 watt pre amp with Kismet. I typically run with a pair of 5 dBi gain Mobile Mark mag mounts and a pair of home made cantennas made from four 3.25" Bush's baked bean cans (Country style of course) 2 cans each. The omni's are mounted front to back with the cantennas aimed out the sides with a slight 2 - 3 degree forward angle.

I knew hams bounced off a lot of things but meteors is a new on for me. I talked skip in the 70's and did SSB and a lot of SWL but never got my ham license. My activity followed the sunspot cycle a lot. I actually do have a class D license from back then. LOL.

Mark, you should get your ticket! Though probably anyone who sees your car probably thinks you have it already. Along the unusual communications methods, some people here are working on rain scatter instead of meteors. It is the same concept but they are using it for communications arround large immovable objects such as hills and mountains on the upper Ghz ranges. http://www.frontiernet.net/~aflowers/rainscatter/

I have also wondered if those people who professionally install WIFI setups have to take into consideration FCC ruls for multi antenna setups and RF radiation. Somehow I doubt it. {when I use my Wifi I (the water molecules in my body) get excited.}

Have you ever taken any pictures of your setups? maybe there should be a photo thread in the Gear forums. low res photos only to save on bandwith, preferably hosted else where.