Can I use WIFI for a network Connection
Good Evening All,
I am currently upgrading the setup of my KiwiSDR and have it mounted in it's own waterproof enclosure (outside mounting) and running from a small 7AH battery from solar.
It does not have a ready access to a wired LAN, so was wondering if it could be connected via WIFI?
The board is about 3-4 years old, and I don't recall seeing it mentioning about any onboard WIFI, so what is the possibility of adding a WIFI dongle to the onboard USB? Or finding out if there is WIFI onboard, or buy a new Beagle Board with WIFI?
If this is not an option, then that will change my plans on where to remote mount the gear.
Thanks in advance. Kevin, ZL1KFM.
Comments
Kevin,
Yes, you can run a Kiwi with WiFi. Like most things in this arena there is more than one way to do it. Some have used USB WiFi 'dongles' with suitable changes inside the Kiwi which can be found on this forum. I chose to do it with an inexpensive OpenWRT Wifi/router and wrote about it also on this forum
http://forum.kiwisdr.com/index.php?p=/discussion/2246/power-over-usb-modifications-for-a-kiwisdr#latest.
This method works well and provides a lot of flexibility but has at least one caveat. Because it uses the USB interface the KiwiSDR Updates must be performed by temporarily reverting to a wired LAN connection.
I've been using this approach on two or three Kiwis for some time and have found it to be reliable and capable of supporting 8 simultaneous Kiwi connections with no issues. It does also have the intended benefit of removing one of the worst common-mode noise ingress mechanisms in the Kiwi, as described in the write-up.
Glenn n6gn
A thread about using a small, external USB-to-Enet bridge is here: http://forum.kiwisdr.com/discussion/comment/6047/#Comment_6047
Thanks Glenn and John, will read through these threads and get onto it.
de Kevin, ZL1KFM.