[ale] Misc ramblings of a diseased mind

[tom]

I'm back from a road trip to see grandchildren and children. Too much time 
spent driving means too much time for the mind to wander into ideas and 
questions. This being one of the more intellegent groups of people 
around...

Due to vehicle size, there were a couple of times when we needed to convoy 
rather than ride the same bus. While cell phones have some use here, 
answering the "Is anybody as hungry as I am?" type questions, lets face 
the fact that they are expensive to use for much longer conversations 
while traveling, increase the risk of accident for their management when 
there is a single person in the car, and are not really a general 
solution despite being in almost every pocket/pocketbook around. I have 
seen a hacks book suggest setting up a two car communications system with 
laptops and ad hoc settings on the wireless setups, but I don't think that 
the setup would scale at all well to a three or four vehicle convoy of 
family/friends/what have you. At least the hardware would be frequently 
available.

With a family reunion coming up in December, having a nice multi-vehicle 
convoy voice-com system with moderate range, decient privacy settings, 
and ease of use, would be an interesting item to have. Two approaches have 
occured to me, but neither feels quite right.

First one would be something setup with an Arduino type controller using 
XBEE mesh networking type connections. Of course, I'm in over my head at 
this point, and would probably need to hire somebody to design and 
implement if I _needed_ it. Or turn it over to the general public (like 
ALE) and see if anything turned up if I don't _need_. It's an idea but 
poorly concieved at the moment.

Second would be to do mesh networking with Linux and VOIP technology. Put 
things on a thumb drive, tell people to bring lappies and possibly USB 
style networking equipment, and go nuts. 'Course I don't know much of 
anything about getting mesh networking going, and even less about things 
like security and range so...

Off the top of my head, I suspect I'd like to shoot for the ability to 
have ranges of near a mile over the highway between any two vehicles, 
automatic reconnection, voice level bandwidths with a little extra for 
comfort or expansion, encrypted links for privacy since this isn't CB, and 
the ability to automatically scale up to multiple (shoot for 20?) 
vehicles.

Anybody here find either idea amusing enough to make a useful comment? 
A ticket for the Clue Train? Even a snide comment?

As usual, thanks to all members of the list for the use of their 
bandwidth. I do appreciate it.