WiGLE.net

if anyone's interested, and doesen't wanna pay the $50 for a magellan gps310 serial cable, here's a workaround (I forget if all serial cables use the same color wires inside, so this will be assuming that they do.) Instead of a normal serial cable, I used the cable from an old IBM serial mouse that i found in my junk pile...

2 ways of doing this. One is solder some wires direct to the large metal contacts. What worked for me was:

(from left to right)(spaces aren't working, let's try .'s)
........O Yellow O Orange
O Nothing ............. O Black

Or, this is the way that I chose.... Take a hacksaw, and cut off the portruding hump, connectors and all, and wire (and solder) as such (i can tell you from experience, twist-and-tape will NOT WORK for very long):

Once it's open, you should have Yellow, Blue, White, and Orange going to the contacts....

Yellow: Nothing, just cut it off, or tape it up
Blue: Wire to the Yellow on the serial cable
White: Wire this one to the Orange on the serial Cable
Orange: Wire this one to the black on the serial Cable.


Anyhow, enjoy, check your serial cable out before you do this, and realise that you'll never be able to use the power cable after this..... and that this project may cause your computer/gps to no longer function, your girlfriend to leave you, and your cat to go bald.....


FYI, xport ( http://curioustech.home.insightbb.com/xport.html ) is a great, FREE way to share your com ports (up to 8 of them) between mappoint, streets and trips, and netstumbler....

FYI, xport ( http://curioustech.home.insightbb.com/xport.html ) is a great, FREE way to share your com ports (up to 8 of them) between mappoint, streets and trips, and netstumbler....

Thanks! I was looking for something in the free as in beer range for XP!

Israel Torres

FYI, xport ( http://curioustech.home.insightbb.com/xport.html ) is a great, FREE way to share your com ports (up to 8 of them) between mappoint, streets and trips, and netstumbler....

Thanks! I was looking for something in the free as in beer range for XP!

Israel Torres

Sure you're not looking for your secret decoder ring crypto boy ?
We're still waiting...

Dutch

Rage,

There is no standard color code for serial cables. What counts is pin numbers. Knowing which pin at one end connects to which pin at the other end would help.

Rage,

There is no standard color code for serial cables. What counts is pin numbers. Knowing which pin at one end connects to which pin at the other end would help.

Fair enough, I'll put a multimeter to it tonight, and report back with pin #'s ;]

Very cool, thanks!

Very cool, thanks!

heh, I take it you have a 310 you're wanting to use? ;]

heh, I take it you have a 310 you're wanting to use? ;]

I'm still shopping at this point, actually. But since I have a bunch of serial cables and "wire it yourself" DB-9 plugs, I like the idea of saving the time and money needed to order a proprietary cable. I can also make my cable(s) as long or short as I need.

I haven't had any interest in war driving/cycling/walking until I was asked to bid for a contract to provide Internet access to multi-story apartment buildings. I had been doing some research in antenna design after I had bought a "non-line-of-sight" antenna that was claimed to be able to penetrate obstacles and make multipath work for you. I was surprised to find that not only did the little bugger work, it could be built quite easily from parts that cost one tenth the price of the commercial product.

During field trials of various antenna/radio combinations, I noticed that many of my neighbors had APs running. When I found WiGLE.net and saw lots of familiar names on the map, I guess the bug bit me. For professional reasons, I need to find the least congested channels for site planning. But now I want to know exactly where the APs whose names I see so often are located. Time for GPS!

If you have any suggestions for a n00b like me, I'd really appreciate it. I walk to just about everything, so I'm looking for something handheld. OTOH I want to be able to connect a patch antenna for when I do hit the road. Are there any particular brands and/or models that are considered superior?

for portables, nearly any WindowsCE PDA can run the mini version of Netstumbler. Zaurus PDA's are Linux and can run Kismet (the better program, overall). a Zaurus can be a difficult way to start with Linux, however. the wifi cards available for these are small and convenient for portable use. Check the program for supported wifi cards before you buy. wifi cards usually shorten battery life quite a bit. a laptop in a backpack can work well, also, and give you much more storage space.

for a vehicle, an omni is better for wardriving. you don't want pure gain, you want omni. if you are doing site survey, that may be a different matter.

good luck, it's a lot of fun!

Thanks argh. I prefer Kismet as well. My Zaurus SL-5500 has become unreliable lately. I'm not sure if it's some bug in OpenZaurus, or that I dropped it one time too many. If it is kaput, I'll probably get an iPAQ because I see more active development on that platform. I really love Sharp products, but sometimes you have to go with the herd.

Battery life is another strike against the Zaurus, or at least the SL-5500. Socket (http://www.socketcom.com/) makes some good, "battery friendly" (their slogan) CF cards. Sadly, they changed the hardware in their low power Wi-Fi card, and it is no longer compatible with Linux. If you have an early model, hang on to it!

I totally agree with you about antenna gain. It's much easier to amass a lot of data that can be processed later to triangulate a location than it is to try to find individual APs with a Pringle's can. If you're mapping the suburban sprawl of 1-2 story houses, then a few dB of gain on an omni shouldn't make much difference. But when that AP could be tens of stories above you, an antenna that is as close to isotropic as possible is the goal.

The main thing that I need help with is finding the right GPS device. I live in the urban canyon zone, so I need something that can give reliable coordinates with very little sky available. Naturally, being able to talk to my PDA is a must. I'd also like an external antenna jack. But I'd also like to know if there is one GPS box that is the war driver's choice.

bkoonce: nearly any GPS with serial output will work. 12-channel/WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation Service) will be more accurate. the 'Little Yellow Garmin' Etrex is adequate and small (not much screen, but you don't care for outputting data). If you are in a vehicle, any GPS with external antenna (or the whole thing being a remote sensor/magmount) will do better than laying it on the dashboard of your car. as long as you get 4 satts, you should be fine.

rage: from memory, pins 2 and 3 are the I/O and pin 5 is ground. that's probably all you need for most GPS devices. i learned this the hard way long ago, when i was making custom 25-pin serial cables. i made 50 teeny solder connections, and didn't learn until months later that for what i was doing, I/O and ground was all i needed...

i used Zaurus 5500/OZ/Kismet/ for a couple of years to wardrive. yes, the battery life with a CF card is miserable. cigarette lighter adapter is vital. i needed to use it portable occasionally, so i wired two big square 6-volt lantern batteries together in series to make 12v. i used the 12v for GPS, and tapped into one of the batteries for the 5500. the zarus wants just under 6 volts. i considered regulating it, but it worked fine, the whole thing lasted for months, i started using something else before i ran the batteries down.

with the serial adapter for the funny connector on the Zaurus, the CF-PCMCIA sleeve to use a PCMCIA wifi card, and the pigtail to go to N-connector, then the external wifi antenna, then the GPS to the serial, then a multi-cigarette lighter power system, it was a pretty big unwieldy ball o' wires, but it worked quite well. it did have the advantage of being able to use differing pieces, so i could be full mobile indefinitely, or varying levels of handheld use. or portable use with a bunch of junk in your pockets/backpack.

i was using it in the car 90% of the time, so i got a junk dead-battery laptop, installed Debian, that works much easier for Kismet. $12 Ebay lighter adapter and it's mobile.