Embedded Linux and Amateur Radio

[Brett Mueller <wa7v@wa7v.com>]

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Good day all,

I am currently brainstorming on developing and implementing a amateur
network in our region (northeast Oregon, southeast Washington), to
include using 802.11 devices running under US FCC part 97 regulations,
similar to Green Bay Professional Packet Radio:
    http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/

But, having had some very positive experience with commercial outdoor
802.11a/b/g access points built around Linux single board computers
(SBC), I'd really like to move in that general direction.  That is, I'd
like to build a system with no moving parts, using Linux as the
operating system, with miniPCI 802.11 radio cards, and having serial
ports to support KISS or 6PACK on TNCs.  I'd like the ability to run
LinuxNode at the least, or preferrably (X)Net.  I'd imagine that the
latter would mean that the CPU would have to be x86 compatible, since
(X)Net is not open source and only binaries are available for it.  The
ability to compile the kernel is almost certainly a must, to roll in
AX.25 support, etc.  Since some of the sites are fairly remote and
inaccessible for six months of the year, stability and reliability is an
absolute must.  For that reason, I'm leaning towards the 2.2 series
kernels, as my experience was that it was always rock solid with AX.25
compiled in -- although I did just have 190 days uptime on my gateway
with 2.4.24 before it inexplicably rebooted (power bump? -- my UPS is shot).

Has anyone already expended some energy along these lines, either time
on the drawing boards, or actually spent building such a system?  Any
words of wisdom?  It would be much appreciated.

73 es tnx,

Brett Mueller, WA7V

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