Masaya Volcano: Day 3

Today due to not feeling the best I remained at the hotel which started off slow but as it progressed a rather productive day was had regarding ERA.

ERA

Today I setup the WiFI non 3G network to test connectivity between all the devices I have with me, the setup was as follows:

With this configuration I could take a photo on the Ricoh, transmit to the server and view immediately on all devices. I also able to view live video streaming from the EDMax, again on all devices. I recorded a video blog which once edited/compressed will appear here.

The purpose of this test was to ensure all required connectivity could be achieved and also confirmed that the setup yesterday was correct so it will be interesting to try again to see if the extreme heat affects the transmission?

Knowing that all is working correctly ensure a smooth step up to accessing 3G connectivity once the dongle is acquired.

Performing WiFi setup tests

The next step was to perform data rate test via the Eee PC on the hotels ADSL line. The original aim was to connect the Billion router to the hotel ADSL line in, however this is found to be via a cable modem and no connect to the Billion was possible.

A ping test was performed using the web address http://bbc.co.uk as the target address.

ping hotel ADSL 10/02/2010 at 12:25PM local time

Followed by four tests, two using jperf and two using iperf, the results of the jperf test are detailed below.

jperf TCP hotel ADSL 10/02/2010 at 12:44PM local time

jperf TCP hotel ADSL text 10/02/2010 at 12:44PM local time

jperf UDP hotel ADSL 10/02/2010 at 12:46PM local time

jperf UDP hotel ADSL text 10/02/2010 at 12:46PM local time

And the same test using iperf.

iperf TCP hotel ADSL 10/02/2010 at 12:50PM local time

iperf UDP hotel ADSL 10/02/2010 at 12:58PM local time

It appears something needs to be changed at the server side to allow the UDP test to complete?

I then have a video Skype call with Trevor in the UK which performed very well. We both made a video recording of the conversation and performed various visual movements with audio to test the performance of the data transfer, holding a hand up and counting down the fingers 5 to 1 to see if there was any delay between video and audio for example.

The best was saved until last, the BGAN!

It was proving a challenge to to get a clear line of sight through the open roof section of the courtyard. Carlos the hotel owner who is very interested in the work I am doing came to the rescue with a large ladder that allowed me to place the BGAN on the roofed section of the courtyard resulting in a reasonable signal on a strength level of 40 on two satellites.

Using this to connect to the internet I was able to setup the server to feed images to the WEB. Two users from different locations in the UK were able to connect to and view the images stored on the Eee PC server.

Carlos posing for test image transmission, BGAN UTP cable to the leading up to the roof can be seen next to him

An attempt was made to connect the EDIMax to the network but its settings were currently configured for maximum image quality and swamped the BGAN connection and breaking it.

The required changes were made to the EDIMax config ready for another try, hopefully on Friday.

iPhone

No iPhone activity today

Personal

The day being spent entirely in the hotel leaves not much for me to say here other than given my sensitive condition I have consumed large quantities of water as well as 7 UP. My entire food consumption today has comprised of 4 small bread rolls this evening at around 8:00PM.

It was not very pleasing to watch the other tuck into the lovely food Carlos’s family had provided…..followed by ice cream and cake!